In the Eyes of a Ranger
by MoKidd
Summary: Follow the adventures of a Mojave Ranger as he battles the Legion for control of the Mojave Wasteland, the fate of New Vegas, and for revenge against an evil foe that has taken so much from him, meeting several old favorites and visiting familiar sites along the
1. Chapter 1

It's amazing how a man can feel more at home in the wide open desert than he can in his own house. Then again, I never really had a house. The desert is all I've ever known. The bare sand, the heat, the sunrises and sunsets, even the dangers that always come with life in the desert, I love them all. I can feel the sweat wetting the back of my shirt, the sand and stone is hot under my hands and arms, and the rifle in my hands is getting heavy. I don't mind. That rifle has saved my ass more times than I care to count.

One thing I was glad of when I joined the Rangers, they let me keep my own guns. I spent a lot of caps making that old Cowboy Repeater into the beast that she is; extended barrel and magazine tube, maple stocks, custom action, even some engraving and new sights just for kicks. I can hit a baseball at two hundred yards with that baby on any day of the week with the iron sights, and when the peep sight comes up and the wind is calm I can score hits at over five hundred. My pistol is a little less done up, but that longer barrel sure does help the stopping power. The belt about my waist holds fifty rounds for both pistol and rifle, along with the Bowie knife that I bought off a traveling peddler who said he found over in the Divide. I don't know how much stock I put in that, but no matter where he got it I know it's a damn good knife. The blade is sharp enough to shave with, which I often do, and she holds an edge like no other knife I've ever owned.

The sun is climbing high in the sky now and the heat is sweltering, despite the early hour. My vest is getting hot and the once white shirt they gave me is almost brown with dust and dried sweat. My vest and breeches are the same dull brown color as the desert around me, as is my hat and the browned skin of my face and hands, blending in almost perfectly with the land. I hold perfectly still and watch the desert over my rifle sights with quick, measuring glances. Movement draws the eye faster than anything and can betray a man's position if he isn't careful, although in the desert it takes only and inch of cover to hide a man.

Sweat trickles down my forehead, stinging my eyes with salt. I can taste in on my lips and feel it in the week's worth of stubble on my cheeks and neck. My whiskers itch something awful, but I'm not about to move to satisfy the urge. They'll be coming along any time now. We've been here for hours, me and the other four Rangers out of Nelson, and nothing is going to spoil this hunt now that the prey is so close at hand. The position is perfect, the wind is just right, and the terrain and chaparral offer complete cover and concealment. The Colorado River is gurgling along its course less than four hundred yards away, marking the boundary between the territory of the NCR and that of Caesar's Legion, and if all goes well those waters will soon run red with blood.

Five years. For five long years, it seems like those waters have been red with blood. Ever since the Battle of Hoover Dam, this little war has been little more than a staring match between us and the Red Bulls across the river. They raid our side, we raid theirs, both of us lose a lot of good men, and nothing ever gets done except for a whole lot of dying. I wasn't at the battle myself, but I remember what the older soldiers told me about it. By all accounts, it was brutal. Hundreds of men blown to hell and gone, on both sides, the whole of Boulder City laid to waste, and a wall of concrete and steel splitting the mighty Colorado with barbed wire and land mines, all over a damn line on a map. We stopped the Legion cold and kept them from bringing their path of destruction west, but for a long time it seems like it was hardly worth it. After five long years, we're still just staring over the river waiting for the other man to make the first move.

No one had to tell me about the Legion when I joined up for this fight. I grew up right here in the Mojave, scraping what little life me an the folks could out of bare rock, scrap metal, and skinny Bighorners. Wolfhorn Ranch was never much of a place, but it was home. The Rangers came in looking for good men a year or so after the battle at the Dam, and when people pointed me out to them they were only too happy to have me. Modestly speaking, I'm probably the best tracker between New Vegas and Cottonwood Cove and one of the best shots in the whole Mojave. I've heard tell that there's a man in Novac that might be as good, but I haven't met him yet to say for sure. All I had to hear was that they were gearing up for a fight with the Legion and that I'd be getting three meals a day, a blanket to sleep in, and all the ammunition I'd ever need, and I was out of that place faster than a man could say "sign me up." I taken this old rifle of mine and Daddy's old pistol and belt, said goodbye to my ma and Jenny, and went off to fight the good fight.

The Legion had been raiding over the Colorado for years before the first NCR trooper ever set foot in the Mojave. A lot of folks that I've known over the years had been burned out, killed, or hauled off in chains by those red-clad devils, and getting a chance to fight them was nothing new to me. I can remember six times when us and a few other families held off raiding parties inside Wolfhorn's walls, the last two of which I'd help fight them off and in the previous three I'd help load rifles and tend to the wounded with my mother. There wasn't much that an eight year old could do, but I did what I could. Out here, that's all a man can really do. This is a hard land that doesn't suffer fools or cowards, and more often than not it gives one chance and only one for those that live in it to prove their worth. Those that pass the test live to be tested another day. Those that fail become food for the crows and the cazadors.

It wouldn't be so bad if it was just the Legion we had to contend with. Farther to the west the Fiends are attacking anything that moves in South Vegas and even taking shots at Camp McCarran, farther west still were the Great Khans in their new stronghold of Red Rock Canyon, and now the Viper Gunslingers and all kinds of other gangs are supposed to be raiding and attacking caravans all over the Mojave. And just before we left camp there was talk of trouble at the NCRCF. That's the last thing we need. If those cons make a fuss or stop working on that old rail line, we'll never get the trains up and running again. Supplies are already running light and the pack caravans are getting into the habit of coming in late or being ambushed en route.

A glint of light near the river catches my attention, bringing me back into the moment. My every sense is alive and alert and my full attention turns to the long, open expanse of land before me. Someone had moved down there near the river and the light had glinted on the metal of a gun barrel or a piece of gear. I hold the rifle stock close to my cheek and ear back the hammer, holding down the trigger so that it would not click, and curl my finger ever so slightly over the trigger. The trigger was very light, almost a hair trigger, so I'm careful about how much pressure I put on the trigger. I hold the sights on the ridge just ahead of the shallow valley, waiting for a target to present itself. Minutes ticked by slowly and the heat began to rise steadily higher. Heat waves danced across the valley, light flickered from the river, and that gecko called out from the distance again. He was probably hunting for some poor mole rat with the rest of his pack.

Finally they came over the low ridge just up from the riverbank. Six men, four recruits, a veteran and a decanus, all dressed in the red armor of the Legion. Two of them had rifles, three had those old double-barreled caravan shotguns, and the decanus had a 10mm subbie. They were walking in the standard single file with the decanus and the veteran at the lead and bringing up the rear, respectively. I take a bead on the decanus, holding the sight on the center of his chest. I whistle the call of a desert wren, which was answered a moment later by another call from the brush off to my right. I take up slack on the trigger, take in a breath and let it out slowly, hold the sight steady, and then squeeze gently.

The rifle jumps in my hands and the sound of the shot shatters the morning stillness. I see the old armor on the decanus' chest jump with the impact of the bullet, instantly working the action to replace the shell. Four more guns sound at almost the same instant, dropping two of the legionnaires and wounding another. The decanus staggers from the impact, blood flowing from the wound in his chest, but then brings up his gun and begins to pepper the brush. I take a quick aim and fire again, this time splitting the black helmet he wears just above his goggles. His head snaps back as if he'd been pole-axed and his body falls limp and bloody into the soft sand. I work the lever again and shift targets to the last of the legionnaires as he runs for cover over the ridge. I take a quick lead, hold the rifle steady and squeeze of my shot. His knee buckles and he lets out a scream of sheer agony as he falls down over the lip of the low ridgeline and out my sight.

Instantly I jump to my feet in one swift, fluid motion and run after him. I work the lever as I run, feeding fresh shells into the tube as it go. The five bodies of his comrades are scattered on the ground, but I pay them no mind. We need that last one alive, if we can get him, to tell us anything that he might know about their plans. He's a veteran, so he might be privy to sensitive information that could be vital. I run past the bodies of the others and scramble up the steep slope of the ridge, holding my rifle ready to fire, and then I see him there on the ground less than ten feet from me.

His knee is shattered, barely anything more than skin muscle still holding his leg together, and his red tunic is dark with blood from a bullet hole through his stomach. A gut shot is a nasty way to go, worse than even this devil deserves, but with luck we could get him back to the doctor in Nelson in time for him to spill the beans. He's frantically trying to crawl away, hopping on his one good leg toward the river and using his left hand for support. His shotgun is on the ground and well out of reach, but in his right hand he's holding a .357 with the hammer cocked and ready.

"Stop right there!", I yell at him as I raise my rifle.

He turns to look at me, and I have to say that I've never seen such hate in the eyes of any man. He raises the pistol to fire, but the sudden turn has thrown him off balance and he falls on his back. He screams from the pain of his wounds and almost drops the pistol, but he's still looking at me with a fire in his eyes like I've never seen before. My sight is right on his chest and I could take him at any time, but I know how valuable his information could be. Don't make me kill you, man, don't make me do it.

"Drop the gun! Do it now and we'll get you back to the doc's and get you patched up."

He glares at me through those glowing embers of his, his teeth clenched from what must be agonizing pain, and I can tell that he wants to try his luck with that pistol. He wants it bad, so bad that he can taste it, but it's over and he knows it. I hear boots running up the bank behind me and I know that the others are up over the ridge, all with their weapons trained on him. I take a ginger step forward, easing up to him but with my gun still ready.

"Come on, now. Just give it up, man. You're caught."

"Ave! True to Caesar!"

Before I can stop him, he puts the gun under his chin and pulls the trigger. His skull erupts in a splash of crimson and pink, I feel warm blood spatter on my face and my clothes, and then he's gone. Damn it! Damn it all to hell! Every damn time, this happens. Every time we're about to capture one of these bastards, he manages to off himself one way or the other. Usually they slit their own throats or wrists, sometimes they do like this poor devil and blow their own brains out, and at least once I've seen one jump off a bluff when we thought we had him cornered. Some call it devotion to the cause or outright fanaticism, but I know better. Some of them may be that devoted, especially the younger ones that have grown up under Caesar's yoke, but in the older ones it's different. They're just so afraid of what their own men will do to them once they've allowed themselves to be captured that they'd rather die than face whatever fate their superiors have in store for them. After seeing what they've done to their prisoners, slaves, and enemies, I can't really say that I blame them.

It takes only a few minutes to police up the bodies and strip them of all the weapons, gear, and ammo that they had on them. There wasn't much. A few rounds of 20 gauge shells, a dozen or so magnums to each man, three shotguns, two rifles, four pistols, and four throwing spears, plus each man had a standard issue machete. These Legion guys love their machetes, and I've seen what they can do with them. We stacked the bodies in a pile and left them for the buzzards, who were already circling overhead, then moved out for Nelson. Within an hour we were past Tehatticup Mine and down the trail to the town, and before we knew it we were being hailed by the men on the outer towers. It was good to be back.

Nelson was just one of many outposts that had been put up after the Battle of Hoover Dam to guard and patrol the Colorado River. Farther north is Camp Forlorn Hope, the main frontline headquarters for NCR forces along the river, and to the south is Ranger Station Echo and then a garrison at Cottonwood Cove. The Cove is little more than just a camp with a few troopers and a communications hub. There's little chance that the Legion would ever attack that far south, but there was little room for error these days. The Cove had a dock, a comms building, and part of the old highway still led off to the west. North of Forlorn Hope was the Dam, and then at the farthest northern frontier was Bitter Springs and Ranger Station Delta. There was talk of establishing a new camp on Guardian Peak, but to my knowledge it hadn't happened yet.

We passed the outer towers and guard posts, then through the gate and chain link fence that did for fortifications. The town was in a good spot, although the defenses could be better. Ranger Gibson, our squad leader, went off to the command post to put in the after-action report once we were inside while the rest of us went over to the commissary to trade in the guns and gear we'd collected and to get a drink. There wasn't a decent bar closer than Searchlight, but the sutler here makes a strong homemade liquor out of prickly pear and moonshine. It's strong enough to take rust off an Old World car hulk, but it gets the job done. We all went into the store he gave us the usual few caps and a jug for the loot, and we all went to the nearest table and pulled the cork.

It was hot, too damn hot, and we were all dirty and our clothing was stiff with stale sweat and dust. Three days we'd been out in the desert, hunting legionnaires, and it was good to be back. I could use a bath and a shave and my guns needed a good cleaning since I'd run out of oil the day before last. The cook brought out some beans and biscuits for us and we ate heartily, all of us knowing that it would be the last home-cooked food we'd have for a while. It certainly beat jerky and Gecko steaks roasted over a mesquite fire. Some coffee would have been great, but it had been a year since I'd seen so much as a bean of it.

"You know," Cooper said after a few mouthfuls of baked beans, "I've been thinking."

"That isn't your strong suit, Coop."

"Shut up. Anyway, something was wrong with that last bunch over by the mines."

"How so?"

"Well, for one thing they came up out of the desert instead of out of the river. These last few months all the raiding parties have been crossing over at night or something and leaving the boats somewhere they can get to 'em fast if need be, never going too far from the river. This last group was different. No boats, no wet clothing, nothing to indicate a river crossing."

"No loot, either," Bronson chimed in, "not a damn thing."

"That's nothing special," I replied over a stale biscuit, "legionnaires don't carry swag with them very often. They raid, rape, and murder, then burn anything that might be useful to the enemy. They don't take anything they can't use themselves and Caesar doesn't let them have much of their own in the way of goods. They don't like money, gear or meds. Mostly they just take guns and ammo. I'll bet that most of those guns we just sold to Percy came off some poor fool they caught flat-footed."

"It still don't make no kind of sense. They came up from the south and left a trail that a blind man could follow, traveling light but not that fast. They didn't have much food on 'em and their canteens were only half full. It was almost like they had a base or a camp nearby."

Gray and Bronson both chuckled at that last part. It seemed a little absurd thinking that the Legion would have a camp anywhere near here, but the more I thought about it the more it seemed likely. Cooper wasn't the only one that had noticed those boys' gear was a little too light, even for a casual raiding party. We'd caught two other groups along the river, one of them not even across the river yet when we picked them off their rafts, and neither of them had seemed strange. That last one, though, was odd. Raiding parties usually carried at least a couple days' worth of rations and water with them along with ammunition for a good long fight if needed, but those men back there at Tehatticup hadn't been carrying more than a day's worth of food and water and were only packing along their own weapons and a few captured guns. I'd seen men equipped that light many a time, but it was always NCR troops who knew they would be back at the base before nightfall.

Ranger Gibson came in an hour later and joined us for a drink and a game. Gray took out his deck and we had a couple games of caravan with our newfound wealth (yeah, right), of which I came out with a good percentage. I'd always been good at cards and most men knew better than to let me in on a game. A few troopers had come in for their own drinks and meals by then, but they left us be. Rangers and troopers were two different breeds and didn't often socialize. Troopers were mostly poor farm boys and Hub kids that came east for the pay and the action or were conscripted out of the poorhouses and sharecrop farms when manpower ran low. They were good enough men for the most part, but they were different from Rangers. Rangers were born fighting men, many of them born on the frontier and brought up fighting off raiders, cannibals, and the Legion. We were better trained and much more experienced than the average trooper and those that didn't fear us just made light of us until they needed us.

Gibson threw back his share of the moonshine and played out his hands until he'd lost most of his share of the loot money, but then he started picking at his graying beard like he did when he was about to say something. We all knew something was coming and so we quieted down and corked the jug. Gibson was an old soldier that had been in the Mojave since the Dam and a man that we all knew and respected, so when he had something to say a man had best sit tight and listen.

"Boys," he said in that gruff tone of his, "I've got some bad news. We're going out again."

"Back to the river?"

"Nah, not really. I told Captain Parker about those boys we got today and he said he's been hearing similar reports from the ghouls down at Echo. According to the radio calls, they've been reporting some strange happenings down near the Cove. Construction, increased Legion activity, and some gunfire the day before last. Two raiding parties hit the station in the last week and they caught two more in the hills, all of them carrying minimal equipment and few rations. The Cap wants us to go over there and have a little look-see."

"Why don't they just radio the Cove and see what's up?"

"That's the strangest part. They haven't had any contact with them in over a week. Not a call, not an action report, not even a call for supplies or just plain old chatter. They think something might have happened and they need the best they've got to find out what, so naturally they gave the job to us."

"How long until we move out?"

"I'm thinking first light in the morning. Give you boys some time to catch some sack time and sleep off that hooch. I'll have Percy fit you all out with ammo and frags and get these clothes washed. I swear I walked in here and it smelled like a damn New Vegas sweatshop."

"Not like you're any better, Gibson."

"True enough, I suppose. We head out first light, and I do mean FIRST light, so all of you be ready. I the meantime all of you get some rest and have some fun. That's an order."

Gibson took another swig of the 'shine, then tipped his hat and was out the door. We all knew he was going straight to the barracks for some down time and one of his books. He kept a collection of Old World books that he'd collected in all his years in the Mojave, some of them not bad. He'd lent me a couple of them and they weren't bad at all, although they were mostly just catalogs and textbooks that had come out of old offices and buildings. He was one of the few people around here who still read for fun. For that matter, he was one of the few men I knew besides me who could read at all. I had never taken much liking to reading myself, although there had been a few books here and there that had caught my eye.

The meal went by fast and we all left caps on the table for payment, then went our separate ways. We all had our own ways of relaxing and unwinding after a hunt, few of which involved being sociable with one another. We were all friends, but there were some things that I all liked to keep to ourselves. A man had to have some personal things or else he would go nuts out here. I stood outside the commissary house and rolled myself a smoke from the strong tobacco I'd picked from the desert, saying good night to the guys as they filed out and went to their separate haunts. Cooper and Bronson went back to the barracks, Gray started walking toward the troopers' mess hall with his deck in hand, and me, I just stood there and watched the sun sink slowly behind the high cliffs on the eastern side of the river. All the yellows, golds, reds and oranges made the sky seem on fire and the cool evening air felt good.

To my way of thinking, there just isn't anything quite like a desert sunset. Noting, that is, except for my Jenny. Looking at the sin sinking into the horizon made me think of her and the folks back at Wolfhorn Ranch, working our little corn crop or her family's tiny herd of Brahman. I remember how her red hair would always catch the sunlight on nights like this when we would go down to the ridge and walk for hours on end, just listening to the coyotes and the geckos off in the distance. I can't say how much I miss that girl. If it weren't for this damn war, you can bet that I wouldn't ever be this far from her. If there was ever someone that I would marry, it would definitely be Jenny Weathers.

The moon rose up just after the sun set, for in the desert the night comes quickly and there is almost no twilight. The cool air rose up and felt good after the heat of the day, and somewhere off the west a couple of coyotes started their nightly chorus. The night guards changed shifts on the perimeter, sounding the watch from the guard towers, and down along the river there was the call of a Lakelurk. I hate those things. I've been caught down by the water by them a time or two and every time it's a pain in the ass. Better than being ambushed by a couple of Deathclaws, though. Those are the absolute worst.

I finish my smoke and rub it out on the sole of my boot, then take my rifle and the bag of goods I got inside and start down the ridge to the river. A high cliff kept anyone from getting to, or for the most part coming from, the river itself but one could still sit and listen to the water gurgling along its course. I found a good spot where I would have a good view of the surrounding area and where I would be able to hear anyone who was coming too close thanks to the thick chaparral and dry foliage. I broke off some branches of the ocotillo and scattered them around for good measure, then spread out my bedroll and sat down to clean my weapons. It took only a few minutes in my skilled hands and soon both rifle and revolver were disassembled, cleaned, and reassembled and reloaded. I took out my Bowie knife and gave it a few licks on my whetstone, although it was already sharp enough to split a hair.

I had never liked the confines of a barracks or a bunkhouse. I preferred the open air and freedom of movement that the desert allowed and the clarity of sound that the clear air gave to one's ears. I almost never slept indoors, not even at home, preferring to take my rest outdoors. It was not bother to the officers at the post, since Rangers were under their own command and it was rare that the regular NCR military were given authority over us, and besides that it was a good idea to have a good man outside the perimeter who could sound an alarm if trouble came up. I followed my usual habit of leaving my boots beside me, rolling up my gun belt so that the holster was raised on the rolled-up belt and within easy reach if it was needed. My rifle was at my side and was loaded and ready for action. Both pistol and knife were easily reached if the need arose, although the rifle was the easiest to grasp and bring into action. I pulled the thin blanket over me and slid my hat over my eyes, instantly asleep.

Dawn came too soon, as it always does, and from old habit I woke an hour before sunup and slung my gunbelt about my hips, wiped the night sweat from the guns and checked their loads, then shook out my boots to check for bugs or snakes before stamping into them. A few moments and I had collected my gear and was ready to go.

I went to the pre-chosen rendezvous point and found the others waiting. Gibson was there with his beaten up old uniform and rifle, Bronson and his tricked-out sniper rifle and gear, and Cooper and Gray stood off to the side talking and leaning on their repeaters. There were no words. A nod from Gibson was all that was needed to get us started and as one man we started down the trail and through the notch I the hills that would take us out into the flats below Tehatticup Mine. We went by no trail and no path, each of us stepping with the careful gait of a walker and the silence of a ghost in the darkness of the predawn hours. The night was cool and clear and we made good time, stopping for only a sparse breakfast an hour after dawn before moving on to the south. We saw several Mole Rats and Geckos on the way, but we wasted no ammunition on hunting. We plenty of food and were treating this as enemy territory. It was unlikely that anything had actually happened at the Cove or anywhere farther south, but many a man had died from taking foolish chances out here and we had no intentions of joining them.

We camped through the noon heat in a stand of thick brush, cooking our supper over a hatful of fire that offered no smoke. We started again after the worst of the heat had faded and made the last dozen miles or so to Station Echo. There we were greeted by a challenge from hidden sentries, knowing immediately from their raspy voices that it could only be the boys of the Echoes of Death. That was the unit that manned Echo, calling themselves that as a play on the name of the post and as a joke on their ghoul forms. Their motto was "_When you hear us, you're already dead_," a motto that they lived up to. It isn't easy to hide from a Ranger, and after the challenge was answered they rose out of the desert like specters that had never been. They were all in their distinctive khaki shirts and red bandanas. There were three of them, all with repeaters in hand, and all of us exchanged a salute and a nod before they escorted us the last few hundred yards into the station.

We came close to the station and we could all smell the acrid, stale smell of the Pit, as we all called it, a deep puddle of green radioactive sludge that had been there at least since the bombs fell over 200 years ago. Even a few minutes of exposure to the water would kill most men from radiation poisoning, although the Echoes supposedly used it as a water source and made their coffee from the thinner sludge. I you're a ghoul, I guess it doesn't matter what's in the water. My pocket Geiger counter started clicking away as we came close to the ragged walls of the post, as did those of the others, but we ignored them and went on. The radiation here was nowhere near the amount that would cause real harm.

We all went into the camp and they offered us coffee and some mole rat meat, which we accepted heartily, and the commander Ranger Wilson laid out the situation. The Legion had been at them another time since the radio call that had brought us there, being pushed back with no losses on either side. The previous attacks had left two men wounded in the post and nine dead legionnaires that had been found. The Legion rarely carry off their dead unless they are of high rank, so the count was more than likely accurate. Several rangers commented that they had hit more of the enemy that would have to be seriously wounded, although there was little sign that could be seen from the station and they had mounted no forays to search for sign. Gibson asked where the raiding parties had been coming from and the answer was always the same, southeast.

"I don't like it," Wilson said after he'd finished, "I don't like it one damn bit. All the raids come from the direction of the Cove and we haven't heard a peep from them in more than a week. We heard faint shooting from that direction last week, but that's nothing new. We figured it was just a river raid being thrown back. Now, though, we aren't so sure."

"Why haven't you sent out a patrol or a search party?", Gibson asked.

"We don't have the men to spare. I've only got a half dozen or so Rangers at this post and two of those are bad wounded. With the Legion out in force like it is, sending men out there would be little more than a suicide mission. You're the closest thing to reinforcements we've seen in two months. I sent for a dozen troopers with heavy iron and they sent you instead."

"Four Rangers over a dozen troopers," I said over the cigarette I'd rolled while the officers talked, "sounds like a fair trade to me. What's that Old World saying? 'One riot, one Ranger'?"

"True enough, Ranger Weathers, true enough. It's a simple mission, boys. We need you to just go over to Cottonwood Cove and see what the hell is goin' on and collect as much information about these Legion raids as you can. Best case scenario, you get down there and find out that there's nothing wrong at all and the Legion just has a tent camp or something set up somewhere along the river and is causing a peck of trouble."

"The Legion is always causing a peck of trouble. But Weathers is right, sir. If there's any trouble out there, we'll find it."

We spent the night in the station, taking turns on the wall to aid in the defense of the place if the Legion came again. They favored night raids and Wilson had said that most of the attacks had been at night, so we were all extra cautious. Cooper too his turn on the wall first, to be relieved by Grey and then Bronson. Gibson laid out our line of march with Wilson over a map of the terrain, and I took to my old custom of camping outside the post. I picked a spot within sight of the station and well hidden by the brush, nestled among a few boulders that had fallen from the cliffs behind the station in some bygone age. The spot was a good one, providing a good view of the valley and the mountain bluff that shielded Echo from attack to the west. The Pit was easily visible, as was the old ruin of the houses that had once stood at the place.

I laid out my gear in the usual manner, although I did not curl up into my blanket tonight so that I would have freedom to move if the need arose. I checked the loads in my guns and loosened the knife in the scabbard, then with my hat over my eyes I fell swiftly asleep.

The desert is a strange sort of place. To many it is a barren, inhospitable place that offers nothing whatsoever to man or beast, but in reality the desert is as full of life as any forest or lush river valley. A man has to be alone with the desert to really understand it, to really know the ways of the land and of the creatures that inhabit it. Nothing in the desert lives without struggle. Every plant has a thorn or poison to defend itself, every animal is cautious of predators, and every movement is governed by the need for water and the expectation of danger. Any move that is made is a quiet one and no animal of the desert takes the chance of breaking a twig or rolling a stone that would betray its position. Such sounds are out of place in the calm tranquility of the desert, and to the trained ear such sounds immediately stand out from all others.

It was such a sound that caught my attention later in the night, instantly rousing me from sleep. I had never been a heavy sleeper and I often slept only in snatches, getting up often to listen to the night sounds whenever I could. My eyes opened at the sound and I peered out from under my hat brim, searching the brush for whatever had made the sound. I couldn't say exactly what sound had woke me, but I trusted my senses too much to think it was nothing. Something was moving out there, something that was not normal or any animal. A minute went by and a I heard it again, the unmistakable whisper of cloth on brush. It was faint and it was quiet, but it was there.

My hand crept little by little to the belt at my side, my fingers grasping at the handle of my Bowie knife. The guns would have been better, but whatever action was coming now would be close and it would have to be quiet. There was no telling how many more might be close by and a gunshot would certainly invite fire from the station. With infinite care I slid the knife from the scabbard and held it with the edge up, ready to strike up and under the ribs so the blade could find the vitals and not be fouled on a bone. The sound came again, closer this time, and then I heard the rustle of feet on the sand. A shadow loomed over me, and I saw moonlight on a blade.

I rolled to the side and onto one knee just as the blade came down with a metallic thud on the hard-packed earth. I struck out hard with the knife and I felt the tip scrape and flesh, then a yell of pain came out of the darkness. I stepped in and grasped at the arm that came up with the machete that would've taken off my head, stabbing upward with my knife. A strong hand took hold of my wrist and the blade stopped, and for a moment the two of us were locked in a fierce battle of strengths as each of us tried to outdo the other. Neither of us gave ground and we were both equally determined to live through this fight. Finally my enemy faltered and I shot a knee up and into his groin. My knee hit something solid on man's belly that felt like armor of some kind, but I hurt him grunt in pain and I felt his strength falter. With the same foot I kicked hard on the shin and he gave ground, his grip loosened on my wrist, then my knife went in fast and I felt the tip find flesh.

The blade went in deep and there was a stifled yell, then I struck again and again at the ribs and under the arm. The first blow was stopped by the old polymer armor that the legionnaire wore, but the second found bare flesh and went it deep, almost to the hilt, and I felt warm blood flow over my hand and sleeve. A low scream out of him and his iron grip lost its strength as he fell to the ground. The rustle of more feet came from the brush and I whirled around just in time to see another red-clad figure coming from the brush with a throwing spear held low for a strike. With lightning speed I slapped away the shaft and swept his leg out from under him with a boot toe. He fell to the ground and I swept the knife across his throat, ending him faster than the last. Immediately I scooped up my rifle and gunbelt and made for the brush. I dove into the thickest of cover available and eared back the hammer of the repeater, but no one else came.

Dawn came an hour later, revealing the two bodies in stark detail. They were two recruits, each of them powerfully built and wearing the new red uniforms and light armor that were common among newer troops. Blood had pooled beneath them and no one had come to loot the bodies or make another try for me. They were unarmed aside from a machete and two spears, that I could see, so this had probably been some kind of initiation. The Legion put a lot of stock in the first kill and a Ranger would be worth a lot more in terms of prestige than the average trooper. I guess I should be proud, but I never liked killing the new ones. Too young to die like this.

I met the others at the mess tent for breakfast, more mole rat and coffee with a side of fresh banana yucca. They all saw the blood on my sleeve, but no one said anything. Gibson gave the only comment after the meal was finished and we were about to head out.

"How many?"

"Two. Up on the ridge behind some cholla."

"Well, there'll be plenty more where we're going. Glad you came out of it alright, Weathers."

"Thank you, sir."

"Ready for another good walk?"

"You know sir," I said as I slung my satchel over my shoulder, "when I got this assignment, I was hoping there'd be more gambling."


	2. Chapter 2

In the Eyes of a Ranger - Part II

It's amazing how cool the air can be in the desert, how comfortable such a hostile land can be in the morning. Soon the sun would rise high and the heat would become unbearable, but for now the day was cool and almost pleasant. The wrens called out their song among the Joshua trees and the prickly pear, a rattlesnake slithered through the dry grass in his eternal search for mice and varmints, and somewhere off in the distance we could hear the chatter of a gecko pack. A roadrunner followed us for a while, darting from bush to bush beside our line of march, enjoying our company as we did his.

The terrain was rough south of Echo, and getting rougher with every step. There were places where the ground fell away so steep that it was hard to keep our footing, falling away in a slope that was nearly vertical all the way to the Colorado below. A fall like that would kill a man if he wasn't careful, so all of us minded every step we took. Gibson led the way across the open desert, his aged and experienced eyes searching every shrub, every clump of grass and mesquite for any sign of movement. Enemies were here, that much we were certain of, and in the desert it took only an inch of cover to hide a man. It's surprising how men that dressed all in red and steel could hide at all in this bleak landscape of copper and brown sand and grass, but they could be there and a body would know it until they came out of the brush with a machete aimed at your head.

We followed no trail, no path that could be watched or mined. We kept to the high country now where we would be relatively hidden and have a good view of the land about us. It was an old Tribal trick to stay to the high ground when traveling. Most people stay to the low ground for concealment, but the high ground offers a better view, less chance of a trail being found, and the rocks and ridges offer better cover from bullets. Plus it was always cooler higher up than in the valleys where the heat collects and grows stifling. Our boots left no tracks on the stone and the hard packed earth. We walked with our weapons ready and our every sense alert for danger, knowing that the Legion could be anywhere in this broken country.

From Echo we turned east, following an arm of rocky, broken land that would offer cover and concealment and was unlikely to be patrolled. There was no shelter there, no place to camp except for the place where it joined the flats to the north and the cliffs along the river were sheer and almost impossible to climb. To our right was Long Drop Canyon, as they were calling it now, falling away for hundreds of feet of sheer bluffs and angling steeply up towards Echo and the hills beyond. It was a day's work to cross that canyon and we knew that Legion raiders were out in force, for whatever reason, and that the canyon offered perfect place for an ambush. We all walked with our weapons out ready, stopping often to listen and to let Cooper scan the area through his rifle scope. Cooper was one of the best snipers I'd ever seen, almost matched with me for shooting ability but much more adept at stalking and stealth. He could move like a snake in the brush and have a shot at anything that moved before they ever knew was there.

We had brought ropes and climbing gear from Echo and twice he broke it out to scale high ledges. I hated the climb, feeling as naked as a baby as I dangled against the dark rock with my rifle slung over my back. If anyone had been out there with a sniper rifle, we would have looked something like ducks in a shooting gallery. I climbed the whole way down expecting a bullet to come careening out of space, but none came and we made it safely to the cover of the rocks again.

It was several hours' walk to the end of the outthrust spur of rocky land. We came close to the Cove and found a place where the ground was open and relatively flat, giving a perfect view of the station and of the mouth of Long Drop Canyon. Gibson gave the signal for us to get down on our bellies and we did so, crawling the last dozen yards or so to the cliff's edge. We could hear the sounds of people down in the canyon, the sounds of construction and of dogs barking and snarling. That was strange. There had been no order given for new construction down here and the NCR didn't allow dogs on its posts. I caught the smell of food cooking on the breeze, but it didn't smell like anything that NCR cooks would be preparing. The normal smells at a base would be that of beans, beef, coffee, stews and soups made from native plants and meats, but this was different. It was more pungent, spicier, foreign.

We came to the edge of the cliff and peeked ever so slightly over the rocks that shielded us from view, and immediately my heart sank. I could see the mouth of the canyon, the spring-fed pool that supplied most of the water for the camp, the two-story comms tower and the shed behind it, and the collection of cabins that followed the course of the old highway from the west or were scattered around the dock. The hulk of a half-sunken ship lay directly below us. I looked at the parade ground that should have been empty and cleared for drills and for supply crops, but it was not empty now. Long, red tents covered the whole of the ground, at least ten of them that would sleep eight men to a tent, and there was a chain-link pen built below the side of the tower that was filled with people. Red-clad troops milled around the camp, two platoons of them drilling near the pool and another marching in formation between the rows of tents.

On the river were two barges that looked like something out of the Viking books that my mother used to ready to me as a kid, their long curved hulls sporting high masts and large sails adorned with the Legion Bull. Two of them were tied up at the dock and another was anchored just off the shore. I slipped my binoculars from my satchel and dialed them in for the distance, and when I trained them on the boats I could see more legionnaires filing out of the ones at the dock and still more waiting to unload on the one still at anchor.

"Good Lord in Heaven," Bronson said beside me, crossing himself as he did so.

"How many you figure, Weathers?"

"At least a hundred in the camp, sir, and that many again on the boats. Mostly recruits and veterans, and a decanus to each squad."

"I see a few officers, sir," Cooper said as he looked through his scope, "I see two vexilarii, some prime decanii, and - oh, shit!"

"What? What is it, Cooper?"

"Take a look, sir. On the platform of the tower, just in front of the commanders' quarters."

He passed the hunting rifle to Gibson and he looked through the high-powered scope, all of us waiting for him to explain. I looked for whoever Cooper had seen, but my binoculars were too weak for me to see anything definite. I could see a man in full armor on the platform, the sun glinting from the steel plates he wore and the long sword that hung at his side, but I couldn't make out his face or his features. Obviously he was of very high rank, probably the commander of this force, but I couldn't place him.

"Oh, shit is right, boys," Gibson said after a moment, "that's Aurelius down there. Aurelius of Phoenix."

Now, I'm not a man that scares easy. I've seen shit that would make most men mess their pants and not batted an eye. When I heard that name, though, a cold chill ran down my spine. We had all heard the stories coming out of the east about the campaigns that Caesar and his armies had been mounting on the tribes of New Mexico and Utah. Aurelius had been commander of the Ninth Cohort that had stormed into New Mexico and massacred a tribe called the Red Devils in their 87th conquest. The army had been commanded by Gaius Magnus and had reduced that tribe to just a few dozen out of a population of thousands. There were rumors that the army that had destroyed the Red Devils was coming west for a new push on the Dam. I guess that for once those damn rumors were true. Here I was looking down at half a cohort of Legion troops, all of them battle-tested and fresh out of the fray, occupying a post that just a few days earlier had seemed meaningless. This was no raid or foray. This was an invasion.

"How the hell could they get here?", Grey said, "They couldn't have sailed from the Fort. Arty from the Dam would've torn them to shreds! Where the hell did they come from?"

"They had to have come from the south," I replied, "from the new territories they took recently. They've got at least two centuriae down there, two hundred men or more. That's twice what's at Forlorn Hope and four times what's at Nelson."

"We better skin out of here before somebody spots us. Just ease back now, boys."

We all crept back from the cliff's edge, not getting to our feet until we were certain that we would be concealed by the cliff itself. We were doubly cautious now, knowing that the force down below was well beyond our abilities. That was an army brought here for one purpose, and that was mayhem and murder on a grand scale. All these years we had been worried about an attack on the Dam, but now here they were in our own backyard. How could we have been so stupid?!

As quickly as we could, we turned west and made for Station Echo. We kept to the best cover and the hardest ground where we would raise no dust and leave few tracks. There was no room for error here. With such a force encamped just a thousand yards or less away there were sure to be patrols and raiding parties out. This was an isolated place and too rugged to be called accessible to most enemies, but none of us was prepared to stake our lives on that assumption. We skirted the bluffs that we had scaled before and took the long way around. It added several hours to our trek, but it was worth the time to avoid the risk. It was coming on to dark when we finally came within sight of the junk wall of Station Echo again and we were hailed by a sentry as we approached. We answered and hurried into the post. All of us were happy to back within the wall, as rudimentary as it might be.

Ranger Wilson came out to greet us and offered us some supper. We ate quickly and Gibson laid out what we had seen to him. His eyes went wide when he mentioned that the post had been taken and especially when we told him the numbers that were now encamped there. He couldn't believe it. In fact, we ourselves could still hardly believe it. The two commanders went off to one side of the tent and argued over what was to be done while the rest of us sat off to one side. We could hear them arguing and cursing and barking orders to the comms officer to put the word out, but I ignored them both. I had my own thoughts and my own worries to think about.

That force at the Cove was an invasion force, of that there was no doubt, but where would they go first? What would they do? Would they commit their full force to one attack? Would they splinter off into smaller units and harass NCR and the civilians of the Mojave? If they did attack in force, where would they strike first? Would they march north for Nelson and Forlorn Hope? Would they go west for Searchlight? The damage that they could do was incalculable, not only to the military but to the civilians that inhabited the Mojave. There were still towns and groups that were not affiliated with NCR that couldn't possibly hold off that many troops.

My thoughts went across the desert, over the rugged hills and over the barren flats to the west, all the way to the old compound of Wolfhorn Ranch. At this time of day they would all be cooking beef and fresh greens over the fire, drawing water from the pump well, changing the guard on the wall, the usual chores. They had no idea what was just a few miles away from them. The Ranch was the closest thing to a fortification between the towns of Searchlight and Nipton. And it guarded the old highway that was a needed supply line. If it was taken then things would get very hairy in the Mojave. And my family was there. My mother, my brothers and sisters, my wife . . .

"Sir," the comms officer came into the tent a few minutes after the order was given, his face drawn with fear, "sir, the word has been put out. All posts have been alerted to the situation, but . . ."

"But what, Ranger?"

"But I'm not getting a response from Camp Searchlight or Searchlight proper and there is some kind of interference preventing me from reaching Station Charlie or Nipton."

"What kind of interference?"

"I don't know, sir. Something is jamming our signals. I can't get through."

My heart sank when I heard that last part. No response from Searchlight and interference between there and Nipton? Something was in or around Searchlight that was preventing the radio signals from being transmitted, something either manmade or environmental that could cancel out radio waves. Nothing natural of that sort existed there and there was only residual radiation in the ground. That left only one thing, manmade. It could only be a raiding party or some sort of attack that was carrying a jamming device. No matter what it was, it was nothing that could be good. Something had happened out there, something bad.

I sat and listened while the two old commanders argued over what to do next. Wilson wanted to pull back to Nelson and prepare for an attack, while Gibson wanted to take us out and go find out what it was that had happened to the west. Wilson argued that it was too dangerous to take such a small force to investigate the radio silence and that every man would be needed if an attack did indeed come, which was true. Reinforcements had already been requested for Nelson and Camp Searchlight. Camp McCarran, NCR's headquarters in the Mojave, would surely not skimp on sending out troops this time around. But that wouldn't help the people out west of here. They were tough people by nature and anyone that had lived any length of time in the Mojave knew how to fight for survival, but two hundred legionnaires was more than any settlement could handle. They would be like lambs to the slaughter.

I listened intently as the two commanders talked, and the more I listened the more I felt an idea coming into my mind. It was a crazy idea, some would even call it suicidal, but it was the best one I'd heard so far. Right now the only ideas were to either risk a squad of Rangers chasing wild geese or to pull out completely and head back to Nelson. I thought it out over and over again in my head and time and again it seemed like the best solution. I stood to my feet and took a bold step forward, catching the attention of both Wilson and Gibson at once.

"What is it, Weathers?"

"Sirs, I request permission to go and investigate the situation alone."

"What?"

"I want to go see what's jamming our radios to assess the situation gather intel. I know the terrain and I grew up at Wolfhorn Ranch so I know the locals well."

"Weathers," Gibson says to me, "I know your family is out there, but do you have any idea what you're asking? We don't know what's out there. For all we know, the Legion is marching in force towards Nipton or even Primm. They could have dozens of raiding parties out there watching every trail, snipers on every ridge, maybe even laying siege to the towns. One man alone is a suicide mission."

"If we take the whole squad then we risk five men and we're more noticeable. Like Wilson says, we'll need every man we can get if they decide to turn north on Nelson. I can get in and get out fast, I know every nook and cranny, and a man alone can slip through any guards a lot more easily than a whole squad. If we all go and get killed then we lose a valuable rifle squad, but if I get myself killed then it's just one Ranger lost."

"Too risky."

"What if this was your family, sir? I have to know for sure."

Gibson stood there for a moment and I could see that he was trying to think of an argument for him, but he wasn't having much luck. He thought I was a damn fool for even asking this, and truth be told so did I, but it was the best option we had available. I could already see that Wilson was wrapping his head around the idea. It made sense, it was militarily sound, and if it had been anyone else but me I know that Gibson would have been all for it. I watched him think it over again and again, pulling at his graying beard as he did so. He didn't like it, but eventually he had to admit that it was the best idea he'd heard. A military unit ran the risk of being wiped out or alerting the enemy. A man alone could do better sometimes, especially one that could move without being noticed through country that he knew well.

"All right," Gibson finally said, "we'll try it. Get yourself another canteen and take all the ammo and food you can carry. I want you to head out before dawn so you can get a good start."

"Yes, sir!"

I wasted no time. Immediately I took up my rifle and satchel and went to the station's supply cache. I took two boxes of .357 magnums, a spare canteen, and about five pounds of dried gecko meat. Preserves would be too heavy and would make too much noise on the trail. One of the station rangers offers me a bandoleer full of more rounds, which I take with handshake of thanks. I sling it over my shoulder and fasten it to my belt, check the loads in my weapons and fill the tube of my rifle to capacity, grab a couple of stimpaks and radiation meds, just in case, and I'm ready for travel. Ranger Wilson insisted that I get some sleep, and after a little argument he shows me to his own bunk. I hate sleeping in bunks. I prefer bedrolls or sleeping bags out in the open air instead of a raised bunk like this inside a tent. I don't know how I'll ever get to sleep in this thing . . . . .

A hand on my shoulder shakes me awake. On pure instinct I lash out with my left hand while my right reaches for my holster, hanging from the wooden post of the bunk, and just as my fingers grasp the bone grips I see Ranger Wilson's face. I try to calm down, apologize for my behavior, and quickly gather my gear. Wilson tells me that I've been out cold for about three hours. Outside the flap the night is pitch black with a partial moon hanging high in the sky and offering just enough light to see by. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust, and when they do I let Wilson lead me to the wall of the station. I see Cooper set up beside a hole in the junk wall, his rifle aimed through a gap in the debris that forms the wall and his body lying prone about three feet from the wall itself. To anyone outside the perimeter he would be as good as invisible. Gibson is squatting on his heels near Cooper, his repeater across his lap. He stands as I approach and pulls something from his belt, holding it out to me as I approach. It's the squad emergency contact radio. Normally only the squad leader carries one, and orders are always to use them only in times of absolute need. The batteries that power them are hard to come by and even harder to replace, so they were used sparingly.

"Take this," he said as he handed me the radio, "you might need it. If you run into any trouble out there, you make the call and we'll come a runnin'. Report in on what you find and you get the hell back as soon as you can, and damn it all Weathers don't get yourself killed. You're too good a fighting man to lose to some fool goose chase."

"Thank you, sir."

"Hell with that. Take care of yourself out there."

For a minute or two there, the old man actually sounds sentimental. I clip the radio to my belt and adjust it behind my back where it'll be out of the way. A look at the moon tells me that I've only got a couple of hours until sunrise. Soon it will be full dark when the moon goes down just before the sun comes up, and that will be the best time to catch a little more rest once I'm clear of the post. Gibson and I shake hands, as do Cooper and I, and then with a running start and a short leap I'm up and over the junk wall and into the cool desert night.

It feels like a completely different world outside the station. My every sense is alert and tuned to the night. My rifle is in my hands and ready for action and my revolver is loose in its holster. Moving from memory, I move from one clump of brush to another on light feet and with very careful steps. There could be watchers in this brush and the last thing I need to come nose to nose with a veteran legionnaire in the darkness. I move quickly through the brush and make little noise, pointing up the ridge toward the station's radio tower. The thick grasses thin out as I get closer to the rocks and I quickly scale the short bluff that runs just outside the wall. A quick climb and a fast scramble brings me up onto the steep ridge and quickly I'm moving towards the tower. It's a steep climb at a run and soon my legs and lungs are on fire, but I keep moving.

Finally I get to the tower and stop for moment to catch my breath. I find a shallow place where the shadows are thick enough to hide me, then squat down for a breather. The moon is sinking down little by little into the horizon. Behind me the distant sparkle of the river is just barely discernable, the last light of the station can just barely be seen, and in front of me is the vast plain to which I go. Somewhere out there was the town and camp of Searchlight, and beyond that was my home of Wolfhorn Ranch and then even further west was Nipton. There were trails through the desert that I could follow in cover, but I would need to pass some of them up in favor of speed. Searchlight was almost half a day's walk, and Wolfhorn that far again. Nipton was another day's travel, but I should be able to find what I need before going that far.

I rest only a moment before heading out again, moving in the thickest of the shadows and on the firmest ground. Thorns scrape against my sleeves as I go and I feel the jagged rocks under my boots as I scramble carefully over them. A slip here could mean a broken leg or worse, so I take each step with care. I point myself southwest toward the old Coyote Mines, the nearest shelter of any sort for miles. The mine would offer shelter and cover from prying eyes while I rest through the remainder of the night. I listen carefully for the sound of predators or for other men, hearing nothing but the orchestra of insects and the constant stillness of the desert.

The cool air is pleasant on my skin, coolly kissing the sweat on my face and neck. Several times I stop to listen into the darkness, alert for any sign of pursuit, but there is nothing by the calm and stillness of the desert night. I reach the mine after more than an hour's trek and step warily in through the old half-rotten door. This was a place that attracted all comers, be they Rangers, NCR troopers, Legion scouts, or raiders that would kill a man for his bootlaces. I quick sweep of the mine reveals nothing, thankfully. I roll out my bedroll and set up an rudimentary alarm on the door (an old tin can filled with bottle caps tied to a string around the door handle) before laying out my gear and curling up on my blankets, instantly asleep.

I don't know how long I slept, but when I opened my eyes I could see that it was early morning and that the sun was full up. I have a quick meal of jerky and water, then gather my gear and set out again. The sun is rising high in the sky, but the heat of the day is still low. Again I keep to the folds of the land an the thickest of cover. Not far from the Coyote should be the Searchlight Gold Mines, where most of the men in the town work. There isn't much gold down there anymore, but there is lead and copper, and both of those are prized these days for bullets and electronics. The mining crews should be at work by now, so there should be people nearby. Always I carry my rifle at the ready. Out here there are more than just raiders and legionnaires to deal with. Golden Geckos, Cazadores, even some Nightstalkers are known to prowl here, and the Golden Geckos love to hunt during the day. And there were always the herds of wild Bighorners that could be deadly aggressive and packs of mole rats that will attack on sight.

Hours pass by slowly and the heat of the day begins to climb. In this desert the temperature can quickly rise to well over a hundred degrees, and in the summer much more than that. It was the middle of summer now, and the heat was quickly becoming unbearable. I take a drink from my canteen as I go, but I'm careful with my water. There was no natural water nearby and the few wells were guarded. Between the two canteens I carried there was enough for three or four days, and with careful rationing it could last a week. I'd gone without water before and could do it again, but hopefully it wouldn't come to that.

All around me the desert stretched out as far as the eye could see. To the east was the broken spine of saw-toothed ridges that separated the plain from the river valley, while to the west there loomed the Black Mountains. I don't know if that was their original name, but that was I'd grown up calling them. Somewhere in those mountains there was supposed to be an old military base that had been taken over by Super Mutants, guarded by Centaurs and radioactive craters, as well as a hidden valley from which no one had ever come back. It's amazing what kind of stories people will believe.

After hours of hiking I finally come within sight of the gold mines. I make for the mine, hoping to find someone from whom to get some kind of news, but the mines are silent. There should be machinery clanging away, men working and milling around, and Brahman caravans that would carry the ore and slag away. But there was no one here now, no Brahman caravans, not even the methodical thud of a hammer or a pickaxe. I approached the mine carefully, rifle ready at my hip, hoping to find something to tell me what was wrong. Nothing. Not a damn thing. No machines, no tools, no miners, not even slag rock from hastily ended work. This mine hadn't been worked in days and the mess of tracks outside the entrance were old and eroded. Something, or someone, had made these men abandon their work and take out quickly. All the tracks led west toward Searchlight, all of them of men in work boots and common shoes.

What could make these men pack and run like that? These were tough men who were used to anything that the desert could offer, hard workers that would work though any storm and fort up at any sign of trouble. What could force them out? Only one thought came to mind, and I hated to even think it. A further mystery was the strange cloud that seemed to be hanging over the west. It wasn't a sandstorm or a thunderstorm. It was dark and ominous with just a slight tinge of color to it, and when the wind came from the west it had a strangely foul odor. I'd never seen anything like it. The cloud didn't move or disperse with the wind, nor did it rumble with thunder or give any indication whatsoever as to its disposition. Whatever it was, it seemed to be hanging over or very near to the town. That didn't sit well with me and only made me more curious to see what it could be and what could be happening to make it so.

Another curious thing to me were the tracks of the miners that had fled so quickly. Something had spooked them from this place. What? Whatever it was had to have been in the south, so on a whim I angled to the south and began to swing a wide circle in search of sign. It took only a few minutes to find what I was looking for. A large party of men on foot had come out of the east, following the path of the old highway but with men on each flank some forty yards from the main body. There were no animals and the men were all of medium to light build, none of them carrying very heavy loads, and they were all wearing sandals with iron studs in the soles for traction. Only the Legion wore sandals like that. The tracks were relatively fresh, no more than two or three days old, and after a wide search I surmised that the group would have to have comprised of at least thirty to forty men.

Forty men, traveling light and fast. A raiding party. A large one, larger than most and almost the largest I've ever seen, but a raiding party nonetheless. Following the trail wasn't hard at all, and following it for a short ways told me all I needed to know. They were heading for the town, without a doubt, but several small groups split off from the main party just a couple of miles from town. One group headed to the northwest, one to the east, and another slightly to the south where they could camp close to Searchlight. I passed two more mines on the way, both of them abandoned, and I noticed that the strange green cloud was becoming larger and larger as I came closer. It was only a mile or less to town now. I could see the spires of the larger buildings peeking over the horizon and the occasional glint of sunlight on a window.

All of a sudden things just felt different. The air became heavy and foul, the hovering cloud seemed to have descended to the earth and become a thin green haze that covered the land, and suddenly I became aware of a strange clicking sound. I reached into my pocket and slipped out my little pocket Geiger counter, looking down at the dial and seeing the needle jumping almost to the red zone. What the hell? There should be no radiation here. The whole Mojave had small amounts of fallout from the Great War two centuries ago, but nothing anywhere near these amounts. What could have done this? I popped a couple of Rad-X and put a Radaway tablet in my upper vest pocket where could get to it, pressing on through the cloud. It was getting harder to breath now and the road was hard to follow, but I trudged on and kept pushing myself to go onward. There had to be someone around somewhere. Someone had to have lived.

The first of the buildings came into view through the haze. Beyond it I could see the church, the fire station, the sandbag fortifications and automated turrets that guarded the entrance. There was no one around, no one in the streets, no one to call out to me as I approached. The Geiger flew into the red zone when I tried to get closer to town, marking radiation levels as deadly. A man would need a heavy duty radiation suit to even think about going in there and I had neither the gear or the expertise to attempt it. Nothing could live in there anyway, nothing but a Feral Ghoul or some mutated bug. There was no chance of anyone being alive here, not a chance in hell.

I took out my binoculars and took a look at what was left of the town. I looked into the street and felt my stomach turn at what I saw. Bodies lay strewn in the streets, one hanging out of a window as if she had died trying to escape from the window. Several of the bodies were in NCR battle dress uniforms, their weapons at their feet as if they had fallen from their hands at the moment of death. The bodies were scattered all along the street, at the sides of the lanes where they would have been walking in day-to-day errands, with the soldiers at the center of the street where they would have been on patrol. This had happened in an instant, as if there had been some kind of bomb or device of some kind. What kind of a weapon could do this? Those Legion bastards had gone too far here. Slaving was one thing, raiding was normal for war at any time, but this . . . this was slaughter for slaughter's sake. They would pay for this. By God, they would pay dearly.

I took out the radio and flicked it on, dialing into the emergency frequency to call in what I'd found. Military intelligence needed to know about this. This kind of a weapon was far too deadly to be left in the hands of the Legion, for that matter in anyone's hands at all, and we needed to stop them from using it again. I tuned into the correct frequency, but there was nothing but static. I tried another frequency, but it was all the same. Nothing came through the radio on my end and I couldn't get anything to come through. This had to be the interference that the comms officer back at Echo had been talking about. This radioactive cloud must be interfering with the radio waves somehow, scrambling communications. Maybe that was the main reason for the attack. Searchlight had been a main base of supply and communication for the stations on the front line. They were trying to cripple our response time, cut off our supplies, choke off our reinforcements.

All of this added up to one thing. They hadn't razed the town, they hadn't taken slaves or trophies. This was a murder raid, plain and simple, and they were trying to cut off Nelson and the rest of the front line. That army at Cottonwood Cove was an invasion force, but the more I thought about it the more it seemed to me that that army was brought here to take out the stations along the river, not to take the inner towns. This party I was trailing was just a small part of the larger force.

Backing off from the edge of the town, I consider my situation. The sun was sinking lower in the sky and a look at the horizon told me that I had less than three or four hours of daylight remaining. Camp Searchlight had to be just to the west, if it was still there at all, and there would be troops there. At least I hope there would be troops there. The camp was at the edge of town and there should have been a contingent of soldiers there that would normally be on patrol around town. At least a squad or two, probably more if they had survived the initial attack, and by now they would be forted up in the camp. There had always been a small circle of defense around the supply tent, but now there should be more fortifications set up after the attack on the town and what had more than likely followed when the Legion came to mop up the rest of the soldiers or to take whoever was left as slaves.

I ate some more of the jerky and another swallow from my canteen. The water was warm and a little brackish and the jerky had the gamey taste the gecko usually does. I had always loved the taste of wild meat. Tame Brahman and Bighorners were alright, but there was something about the taste of a truly wild animal that made it that much better. They tasted of the hills and the mountains and the valleys where they had lived, of the wild places where few men had been since the olden days. I wished I had some wild meat on the spit now, cooking over a fire with some sage and banana yucca to go with it. That would really be great . . .

Something moved down toward the town. Instantly I lifted my rifle and eared back the hammer. I couldn't see anything through the green mist, but I could hear the sound. I could hear shambling feet, a low moan that almost sounded like a growl, the rustle of armor as a person moved. Was there someone left alive? Had someone survived the radiation? I felt hope rise in my chest and I ran for the sound, hoping that I would find someone walking out of the mist. A form came out of the cloud, a hunched, shambling figure with his arms hanging at his sides. Something was wrong with him, something that I couldn't quite see. I saw that he didn't have any hair, or didn't seem to, and there was something about the way that he was swaying from side to side.

"You there!", I shouted at the figure, "Are you hurt? Answer me!"

He didn't answer, but his head came up sharply and he let out a visceral growl that sent a chill down my spine. He started at me in a shambling run and raised his arms, grasping at the air in my direction as he came at me. I raised my rifle to my shoulder on pure instinct and wrapped my finger around the trigger. He came closer and closer to me and finally came out of the mist where I could see him clearly. His face was horribly burned, his skin drawn and red, his teeth were gnarled, jagged, and yellow, and his eyes were a kind of dull white that gave me the chills. His face was stretched into a jagged maw and he was coming at me faster now. I yelled at him again, but he didn't seem to notice or care. He was a ghoul now, a feral, and his one instinct now was to tear me limb from limb. He wasn't human anymore.

I looked down the barrel and took a sight on his forehead and took up slack on the trigger, holding just below the spot I wanted to the bullet to hit. My repeater was set for a hundred yards, so the bullet would hit just a bit high at this range. He was almost on me when I squeezed off my shot, no more than ten feet or so away. The bullet went in right between his eyes, splattering rotten irradiated flesh and ending his misery forever. He falls to the ground, dead, and I lever a fresh shell into the chamber as I watch him fall. I take another cartridge from my belt and thumb it into the repeater, wanting it to be fully loaded for future use. Looking down at the body of the poor man, I can't help but pity him. Who was he? Did he have a family? Did he die quickly the first time, or did he die slowly and horribly like so many others?

Over a hundred people had lived here in this town. Men, women, children, soldiers, barbers, housewives, all of them just going about their daily lives. A hundred and twenty, maybe a hundred and thirty people, all gone now. All dead or turned into mindless beasts like this poor devil. All dead and gone, a whole town turned into a cemetery, and all in the name of some crazy old man's mad dream. Where will this end?

More movement from the town draws my attention from the corpse. More shambling feet, more moans, and something else. More figures come out of the mist, arms outstretched and yellow eyes blazing with blood lust. Some of them are wearing NCR armor, some the tattered remains of their former clothes, others naked but for a tattered piece of cloth about their midsection. I count four, no eight . . . ten . . . twelve . . . twenty of them. And now something else comes out of the shadows, something that makes my heart skip a beat. Green scales, a towering stinger, claws snapping at the air and cracking like pistol shots. Three of them, twenty ghouls, and me with just twelve shots from a Cowboy Repeater.

"Oh, God," I say to myself as I raise my rifle, "this could be it."


	3. Chapter 3

I had dealt with Radscorpions before, both the small ones and the giant ones and I had killed more than my share, but this time I was really in a pinch. Twenty ghouls, three giant Radscorpions, and me with just my twelve rounds in the repeater and six in my revolver. There was only one chance of escape, run. I raised my rifle to my shoulder and took a quick aim at the nearest ghoul, centering the sight on his forehead and squeezing the trigger. I saw him fall and levered another shell into the chamber, taking aim at the next nearest ghoul and firing once, then again. The first shot missed and the second took him in the chest. I levered another shell into the chamber, but turned to run in the direction of Camp Searchlight. I took more shells from my belt and thumbed them into the rifle as I ran, but I could still hear them coming behind me.

I ran for all I was worth. I hadn't run this fast since basic training and soon my lungs and legs both were burning from the exertion. I could hear them coming behind me, the shuffling feet, the demonic groans and growls, the snapping of the Radscorpions' massive claws. They were close now, too damn close for comfort. I look over my shoulder and see four ghouls almost on me. The camp had to be somewhere ahead of me. It HAD to be there, or else my goose was cooked.

A stone rolled out from under my boot and my foot rolled out from under me, throwing me off balance and falling to the ground. Shit! I saw him coming a split-second after I was on the ground, a tall ghoul in bandoleer fatigues with his helmet still hanging from the broken chin strap that had fused to his rotten neck. His jagged maw was wide open and his boney arms were outstretched toward me, his bare-boned fingers ready to tear at my flesh. Three more were on his heels, all of them dressed in similar uniforms, and I could see and hear the others coming up farther behind. The Radscorps had stopped to tangle with some of the ghouls and I could hear the snaps and roars of the combatants. The ghoul was coming at me full speed now, so close that I could smell the putrid stench of his breath and radiated skin.

My hands move all on their own and I feel the rifle jump in my hands, then on instinct I work the lever twice more. I see the armor and skin on his body jump from the impact of the bullets. He falls dead and I scramble to my feet just before the second ghoul comes at me with hands outstretched. There's no time to lever another shot in, so I bring up the rifle and strike hard with the barrel at the thing's chin. His head snaps back and I swing the stock around even harder for a butt strike to the temple. I hear the skull crack and his jaw goes loose and limp as he falls to the ground like a sack of potatoes. I lever a fresh shell into the chamber and turn back toward where the camp should be, but I don't get even a full step before the third ghoul is on me. One more step and those chomping yellow teeth would have taken my face clean off.

Her arms come up after I step back to evade her bite, trying to claw at my face. I bring the rifle up and block the blow, but she followed the force of the blow in and grasped my shirt with her boney hands. The fingertips scraped against the skin under the shirt and her bulk shoves against mine, forcing me back a step before I planted my feet in the ground and anchor myself. Her teeth come at me again and on pure reflex I bring the rifle up again. Her teeth clamp down on the receiver and I hear the metallic screech of teeth on steel, her rotten breath reaches my nostrils in an offensive cloud. More shuffling feet came from behind me and I could hear the screech of the scorpions coming my way again. I can see them coming from the corner of my eye. Fifteen of them in a scattered horde, with two Radscorps coming up behind them.

It takes all of my strength to hold her back. I'd heard somewhere that becoming a ghoul makes a person unnaturally strong, or maybe its just that their nervous system shuts down and they can't feel the pain that comes from overexertion, I can't remember. Either way, this bitch is too strong for me. Her chopping teeth are coming closer and closer to me, her front teeth almost scraping my nose. I've never seen a woman this strong, even though in life she was a petite little thing that probably couldn't open a jar of pickles. Her tattered sundress and what's left of her ponytail would have been lovely at one time and I'm sure she was a pretty enough girl when she was alive. Her burned face is grotesque and misshapen now, a vision of the Hell if there ever was one. Damn those Legion bastards for making me do this!

I see the others coming at me from the side, closer and closer now with their growls and roars ringing louder in my ears. Another second or two and they'll be on me too. I have to break free and I have to do it now. With all my strength I shove back on the rifle and force my assailant back just enough, putting my full weight into it and striking out with my boot at the ghoul's shin. My hiking boots have thick tread and covered steel toes, so when my kick lands home I feel the bone break and hear the snap. Her body falls back and takes my rifle with her, still clutched in her hands, and as she falls backward I feel my .357 jump in my hand. I had no memory of drawing it, but my hand moves all on its own and thumbs off a shot that takes off the top of her skull. Another second and I'm running and the again, but this time I'm slower, tired, near to exhaustion. The long day of walking, the sudden sprint from the first sight of the ghouls, the fight with that last one, all conspired to rob me of my strength.

My lungs were burning and my breath came in gasps, my legs were on fire, and I could feel the fatigue coming over me in waves. They were still behind me. They were tireless, unflinching, unrelenting beasts that wouldn't stop until they had me. Even the Radscorpions had given up, for it no longer heard their hissing and screeches. I'd run almost a mile by now and a ridge was coming up in front of me, a steep ridge that was covered in low brush and tall dry grass. I had to get over that ridge. The camp should be just beyond it. It should be there . . . it had to be there . . . hell, it probably wasn't even there at all. I should just turn around and go down fighting like a Ranger should. Those things were gonna get me one way or the other. I could either die here and now or keep running into a camp full of brown-clad bodies and die tired.

"Get down!", a voice called out from ahead of me.

It took a second for it to register that it was actually a real voice and not just some random hallucination brought on by the fatigue. My vision was getting blurry and my breath was getting even more labored as I ran up the steep slope. I looked up the hill and saw several figures rise out of the tall grass and raise their weapons, all of them aiming at me or past me. The leader was a tall, stocky black man with bandoleer armor and sergeant's stripes on his sleeve. He looked at em and screamed at the top of his lungs once again to see that I heard it.

"Hey, you, get the hell down!"

Well, when a man's pointing a Service Rifle over your head with a passel of friends behind him a man just naturally does like he says. I dove to one side and rolled on my shoulder as I landed, rolling into a sitting position where I could bring up my pistol to fire. A volley of gunfire came from up the slope, the unmistakable pop-pop-pop of the Army's favorite Service Rifles, and I watched with satisfaction as the horde of ghouls fell to the ground one by one. Bullets ripped through their heads and bodies. One of them kept running through the spray of bullets, seemingly unharmed as he rain through the hail of lead coming from the hill behind me. He was different from the others. He wore the same NCR armor as most of the others, but his skin was glowing a bright florescent green and his blood was like something out of a nuclear waste dump.

He charged forward like an enraged Brahman, coming straight for me and had seemingly ignoring the bullets that were going through him. I'd always hated those old 5.56mm shells that the Service Rifle fired. It never had enough knockdown power and the bullet just went straight through a target. I ear back the hammer of my revolver and steady it with both hands, take careful aim, and take up slack on the trigger. He's no more than twenty feet from me and closing now. An easy shot for me and my gun. I squeeze gently on the trigger and feel the kick of the heavy shell, a black hole forms on the glowing ghoul's head, and after a splatter of green glowing brains and bone his body falls limp and he falls dead ten feet from me.

NCR soldiers came down the slope all around me, each man moving with their weapon up and ready to fire as they looked over the bodies of the ghouls. One of them produced a 9mm from his hip holster and went to four of them, which apparently were still alive, and he casually put a bullet into each of their heads. One of them, a younger man that looked like he barely even shaved, kicked over the body of the ghoul-ette I had been wrestling with and picked up my rifle. I wanted to go and get it from him, but at the moment I just wanted to stay where I was and lay still for a moment. My every muscle was sore and I was just starting to get my breath back, the pistol was heavy in my hand, and if this was any other time I would have been happy to lie there and fall asleep.

The tall black man was standing over me when I opened my eyes after a moment. He was holding his Service Rifle by the carry handle in his left hand and in his right he held my own repeater. He was smiling down at me with a sort of crooked smile that I recognized in a fighting man and after a moment he held out the repeater to me.

"I thought you might want this back, Ranger. Of course, if you don't then I'll just take it off your hands."

"The hell you will, sarge. She's mine and nobody's taking her away from me."

"If you say so. I think that ghoul over there did a pretty good job, though."

I forced myself to stand then, even though my legs were like warm jelly, and took a moment to gather my thoughts and to let my muscles stop aching quite so much. I took my rifle from him and slung it over my shoulder, then listened to him talk as I ejected the spent casings from the revolver and thumbed in fresh ones from my belt. One of the first things my Pa had taught me when I was a youngster was to never holster an unloaded gun. A man never knew when he might need a full six shots, and a body can get into a real bad habit of forgetting the last time he reloaded if he gets careless.

"So," the big man said, "you wanna tell me what the hell you're doing out here in the middle of nowhere running a marathon with Radscorpions and ghouls?"

"I'm Ranger Daniel Weathers, Bravo Company of the Mojave Rangers stationed at Nelson. There's been a Legion incursion at Cottonwood Cove. I've been sent to alert the outlying settlements of possible raids and to report back any intelligence on enemy movements."

"First Sergeant Raymond Astor, 6th Battalion, 11th Light Infantry. Pleased to meet you, Ranger, but if you're looking for outlying settlements then I'm afraid you're shit outta luck around here."

"What happened here? Did the Legion do this?"

"Who else? They sent some Frumentarii into the camp a couple days ago. We didn't know they were there until it was too late."

"What was it? A bomb?"

"Sort of. When we took over the town there were some trucks in the old fire station that were carrying radioactive waste. I guess they put 'em in there back in the day and nobody bothered to check 'em out. We had word that there was a large Legion raiding party in the area, so they sent me and these others out on a scouting patrol. We weren't in town when the spies opened up the canisters that were in those trucks. They were killed instantly, but the cloud took over the whole town in a matter of minutes.

"It was horrible. We all had to watch from the hills as everybody in town either dropped dead or turned into these things." He indicated the bodies strewn across the desert just a few yards away, now being stripped of gear by the soldiers and hauled away for burning. "We've been keeping a lid on it so far. Regular patrols keep the ghouls in the town, we turn back anyone that comes along, and we do our best to pick off the stragglers and wanderers that try to leave the town. I've been trying to radio out for reinforcements, but this radiation is jamming all the frequencies."

"I know. Mine won't work, either. The raiders that did this, did you see them after the attack? Did you see where they were heading?"

"They came through right after the cloud dissipated enough for them to travel. They made a show of attacking us, but we were more trouble than we were worth. Eight men in a defensible position with plenty of ammo and motivation? Vulpes might as well have lined his men up for a firing squad."

"Vulpes?"

"Vulpes Inculta. He's the one in command of the raiding party. I could tell by that stupid wolf's head that he wears as a helmet and by the insignia on his armor. He had some of his men pin us down with rifle fire while the rest of the troop ran by us. They headed west. We heard some shooting from that direction the other day. I wouldn't go that way if I were you."

"I have to. My family is at Wolfhorn Ranch and I have to warn them and Nipton."

"Wolfhorn is right in their way. I shudder to think of what'll happen if they get caught unawares. The people there are tough, I know, but whether they're tough as thirty legionnaires I don't know."

"I just need some water and a little food, and I'll be on my way."

"You're in no condition for travel, man. Look at you, you're about to keel over."

I hated to admit it, but he was right. My legs were already sore from the exertion and I was starting to feel tired. The little snatches of sleep I'd gotten through the week and the few hours of rest I'd gotten back at the station hadn't done much, and the long day of travel and the fight with that lady ghoul had really taken it out of me. What I needed was a good meal and some real rest, but I wanted to get to the Ranch in the worst way. Those thirty legionnaires weren't going to bypass it, they couldn't afford to, and like Astor said it was unlikely that they would see the attack coming. I remembered that Jed Matthews and his sons usually kept either one of them or one of their hands on lookout for trouble and the shooting at the patrol camp might have tipped them off, but whether they could get everyone inside in time and fend off the ensuing attack was the real question.

Hearing the name of Vulpes Inculta gave me added concern. I'd heard of him before, none of it any kind of good. He was a notorious slaver and a cruel master to all that he captured or sold. There were stories of him selling children and wives in front of their families just for the sheer joy of watching them cry and beg. He was one of the Frumentarii, Caesar's elite corps of spies and assassins, and for the last couple of years he'd been a field commander on the front lines. He'd commanded at least three large scale raids across the Colorado, one of which our troop had helped to fight off, and I could remember the cruelty he'd shown to those in his way. I remember that when we caught up with him at the river and would have taken him and his from the cliffs that he had broken the legs of his captives and booby-trapped them with grenades and mines. Two of our guys died tripping those traps, and when we pulled back he detonated the last of the bombs just for spite.

It was getting late in the day and the sun was sinking lower into the west now. The men had finished policing the bodies and piled them onto a burning pyre. I could smell burning flesh and the dark smoke rose into the copper sky, mixing with the green radioactive mist. I had to get moving and fast. I was tired and sore and it was almost nightfall, but I had to keep moving. Vulpes Inculta's involvement changed everything. Any Legion commander was bound to be cruel and heartless, but even among the Legion there were some that stood out as especially cruel. The very thought of having him anywhere near my family sent chills down my spine. If he was in command and this was just a murder raid . . .

Sergeant Astor led the way back to their patrol camp, him in the lead with three men and myself and two others hanging back to bring up the rear. There was a single large tent with a sandbag wall built in a half-circle around the perimeter and a tall bluff providing protection from the rear. The two men Astor had left to guard the camp rose up from behind the sandbags and hailed us with a challenge, which Astor answered, and I could smell food cooking over the fire. The creosote wood smelled good and I could smell coffee boiling and what smelled like Bighorner steaks and beans cooking. The smell made me remember how hungry I was and when Astor offered me a plate and a cup I took happily.

I'd never been one to skimp when it came to feeding time. My mother had always said that she would rather sew my clothes than feed me, and that a man had better have a side of beef handy if he wanted to keep me to table longer than a few minutes. I taken that plate of meat and beans and cleared it in less than a minute, then ladled myself up another. Another plate and three cups of coffee later I realized what a pig I was making of myself and forced myself to put down the fork. These boys were low on supplies and they would need all that they had left to keep up with their duties here. Astor let me fill my canteens from their cistern and take some jerked meat from their stores, and then I was ready to head off again.

"I don't like it, Ranger. You look like hell and there's too many of them out there for just you. Why don't you take some rest in the tent over there and head out in the morning?"

"Can't, sarge. My family is out there and I'm not taking any chances with the likes of Vulpes out there. Are you men staying here or pulling back to Forlorn Hope?"

"We're staying here. Somebody has to make sure that people don't walk into this mess. We'll send whoever comes along to the north and pick off as many ghouls as we can before they overrun the place. I lost a lot of friends down there. The least we can do is to put them out of their misery. I'd appreciate any help that you could offer."

"Sorry, sergeant. I've got business of my own to tend to."

"I understand. You watch your ass out there."

We shook hands and parted ways then, him returning to camp while I headed west into the setting sun. I went at a faster pace now, wanting to beat the sun and use as much of what remained of the daylight as I could. I was tired and I wanted to sleep, but now I was fueled by adrenaline and worry. I had to get to the Ranch. I had to get there in time. I picked up the trail of the legionnaires about two hundred yards from the patrol camp. The tracks were all at least two days old and I found spent shells where riflemen had fired at the camp. The shells were .357s, probably from Cowboy Repeaters, and by the shells I guessed that there were at least two Hunting Rifles present as well. Two of the shooters had dug a shallow place for themselves in the loose sand for a better position and I found impact points where the soldiers had returned fire.

The trail led off to the west in a straight line for Wolfhorn Ranch and I followed it at a steady jog. I wanted to run, but the Ranch was close to ten miles down the old highway and I would need all my strength for what I thought I would find there. Fear gripped me as I ran, forcing me to go on even when my every muscle was screaming at me to stop and rest. Sweat ran down my neck and back, staining my shirt and soaking through my vest, but I went on. Astor had said that there had been shooting from the direction of the Ranch. Maybe they had made a fight of it, as they had so many times before. Wolfhorn Ranch was built like a fort and my family and the others had held off some tough attackers from its walls. But were the people I knew tough enough to stand off thirty legionnaires? I didn't think about it I forced it from my mind and made myself run. It wasn't much farther. Just a few more miles. Just a few more miles and I would know for sure, one way or the other.

The first thing I saw was the smoke. I could smell it even before I saw it, and there could be no doubt as to where it was coming from. There simply wasn't anywhere else that could be burning. I ran doubly hard now. I was wringing wet with sweat now and it fell in great drops from my brow. I had heard of men running themselves to death. I feared that I might be doing that very thing to myself now, but I didn't care. The Ranch came into view and I could see the rows of corn that Ma and me had planted. It was a small plot, just enough to keep us fed and to have a little left over for trade. I saw our trailer beside the corn, the car-hulk defenses I'd helped build as a boy, then the walls of Wolfhorn Ranch itself with the old water pipe running through the top of them. Only the walls looked different now. In my fatigue and near delirium I didn't see at first just how they were different but as I came nearer I could see why. The walls were there, but just barely. They had been burned and torn down and in places and what hadn't been torn down had been set ablaze.

I ran up to our trailer and nearly fainted. What I saw disgusted me. There, in front of the trailer, were the remains of what had once been my family. They were all there. Ma, my little brother Jimmy, my sisters, and at the very end of the grisly line of bodies was Jenny. Her fiery red hair was matted and dark from dirt, grit, and blood, and the machete wound in the back of her skull had split clean through to her face. Her eyes were wide with fear, frozen in her last horrible moment of fright before she was taken from this world. Her yellow sundress had been torn and there were stains on the fabric. They had been at her. They had been at Ma, too, and I couldn't force myself to look at my sisters. Their little heads had been kicked in with sandal heels, while my little brother had been shot through the chest and head. There were shells around from his old Varmint Rifle, but the gun itself was gone. I walked on rickety legs to the ruined trailer and looked inside, finding exactly what I expected.

I felt sick. I've seen some real sick shit in my time, much more than any man ever should, but this made even my strong stomach heave. I ran to the nearest hulk and leaned over the hood and emptied my stomach. I collapsed, half from exhaustion and half from shock, and for a long time I sat in the mud staring at the bodies of my family. Who could do this? What kind of monster could do this?! What manner of men could ever . . . no, not men. The things that did this were not men. How could any man do this to women and children? These were monsters, dogs not worthy to live on this planet. They didn't deserve to live.

I wanted to bury my family, but I had no tool to do so with. I had no spade, no pick, nothing aside from my knife and that would be less than useless in this hard-packed soil. It was getting dark and the sun was already halfway down under the horizon. I was tired, so tired that I could hardly keep my eyes open, and for the first time in my life I was crying. I cried like I had never cried in my life. My entire life, my entire family, everything that I had ever held dear was laid out in front of me bloody and dead. I wanted to die, I wanted to kill, and for a long moment I looked down at the repeater in my hands and thought of what a good friend it could be to me now. Like any good friend, it could help me out of this. It could comfort me, it could make it all go away with just a little effort. It could be my best friend in the world . . . .

I don't know how long I slept. I don't even know when or how I fell asleep. When next I opened my eyes, the sun was just creeping up over the eastern mountains. The air was clear and cool, just like mountain air should be, and breathing it in was like drinking cold water. A cool breeze blew down from the high peaks, betraying the promise of the day's heat yet to come. Crows circled overhead, complaining to the desert, and somewhere out in the distance a lone coyote howled his last song of the vanishing night. He sounded so lonely, so sad, so distant, just like I felt at that moment.

The bodies were there before me, now all the more horrible for the stark reality that daylight shed on them. My family, my loved ones, all dead and gone. And here I was without even the ability to give them a decent burial. All I could do was to mourn them, remember them, and to avenge them. I tidied them up as best as I could. I fixed their hair and tried to clean them up with the water left in one canteen, and when I came to Jenny I had to fight back the tears. I looked down at her hand and saw that her left ring finger was missing, along with the ring. I had walked all the way to New Vegas to buy her that ring. Now some Legion bastard was probably wearing it on his belt as some sort of sick trophy. Not for long, though. By God, not for very long at all.

I gave the area a quick once-over. The signs of battle were everywhere, and I could see that the people here had made a good fight of it. There were more bodies within the confines of the Ranch, most of them laying as they had fallen but with a few lined up and executed as my family had been. Only the children and some of the younger women were missing. The Legion liked to take the young and the women back as slaves or captives or . . . pleasure. I didn't seen my uncle's family among the bodies, my aunt or either of my cousins. They had been taken, then. I shuddered to think of what had been or was being done to them. I found Jed Matthews and his sons on the wall. All three had died fighting, their weapons taken from their bodies but the shells and wounds were still there to show their bravery. There was no sign of his daughter, and I knew better than to go to look at his husbandry farm. A distant column of smoke told me all I needed to know.

There were blood spots on the perimeter where legionnaires had fallen. The bodies had been carried away, probably by the last of the fighters before they were executed, and down the hill a found what was left of a pyre. Charred skeletons and bits of bone were all that was left. Served them right. I hope they just keep burning in whatever world comes after this one. I counted the skulls in the pyre and they amounted to twelve men dead, while the blood spots numbered sixteen. So there were men wounded in that party. Pretty good, boys. Pretty damn good, alright! The people I knew here would never have gone down without a fight, and they had made the red-clad bastards pay for their small victory here.

Scouting around, I studied the sign and tried to figure out just what had happened. From the tracks I figured that they must have come in the early morning, catching the place by surprise just when everyone was coming out for their morning chores. They hit our place first and little Ricky had made a fight of it, but the trailer was cut off and there was just no chance of defending. The legionnaires had swarmed the trailer and killed off my family, then come for Wolfhorn itself. By then the others would have been ready for them, though, and I figured that they had downed at least six or seven men in the first charge, then another three in the second attack. The last three had been taken down after the wall was breached, hand-to-hand. Mick Matthews had accounted for at least one, which was no surprise. Mick was the best man I've ever seen with a knife or a machete. The Legion had made the survivors police up their dead, burn them, then lined them up and executed them before setting the stockade ablaze. The watch towers and the bunkhouse facing east were oddly intact. The only reason I could think of for that was to give a false sense of security to anyone looking west.

Parched, I went to the well for a cool drink and a chance to cool off. I turned the pump wheel and the water came out cool and clear from the spout, and cupping my hand I took a big drink. Immediately I spit out. It tasted metallic, dirty, and I heard my pocket Geiger counter went crazy. I held it to the spout and caught some of the water on the sample pad, and the count went straight into the red zone. The sons of bitches couldn't stop at murder and rapine, they had to poison the water too?! These men really were monsters. These were the kind of men that just didn't deserve to be alive, something that I made up my mind right there and then to correct.

The trail of the raiding party led down the slope and into Wolfhorn Canyon. The canyon was deep and cut by cracked, eroded old ribbon of concrete and asphalt that was the old highway. It had been a popular ambush spot for Viper and Scorpion Gunslingers before the ranch had been built, and now that the place was out of the way it was sure to become so again. The trail went cold at the highway, vanishing onto the bare asphalt, but there was no doubt as to where they were going. The road led through the canyon and went on over the bare desert beyond, and at the mouth of the canyon was Nipton. I'd been there before and it was a lively place. There were two bars, three brothels, several independent cribs where the ladies would ply their trade, and a general store that supplied just about anything that a man could want. The place made a pile of money playing to all sides and never siding with one or the other. The NCR didn't like it very much, but it was a place where the troops could unwind and have a little morale boost. It was also independent, which meant it was one less place for them to commit troops.

I knew better than to follow the trail into the canyon itself. It was just too good a place for a man with a rifle to be watching their back trail. By now they had to know that they would be pursued. The fight at Wolfhorn would have drawn definite attention, or so they must have thought, and if I knew Vulpes then he would have at least one man stationed at a high point to watch for pursuit. The tracks leading away from the Ranch had been fresh, no more than a day old. If someone had been left behind to watch, he might still be there.

I skirted along the north side of the canyon, keeping low and to the best of cover when I could find it. I kept a careful eye on the opposite ridge and listened carefully for any sound that seemed out of place. This was deadly country on a good day, and the addition of those Legion dogs only made it more so. And then there was me. That massacre back there at Wolfhorn had left me with a murderous rage and right now there was only one way to sate it. Never in my life had I set out to kill any man, but now for the first time I felt the urge to kill. I wanted to find the monsters that had killed my family and do for them what they had done for my folks. I wanted to hunt down every last man of them and gut-shoot them, then leave them on the sand for the Geckos and the coyotes. I've never been a trouble-hunter and I don't like men that do so, but this time it was different. They had taken from me and now I intended to get some back.

The country was rugged here and the land was broken and jagged from untold millennia of wind, rain, and heat. Always, there was the heat. Down in the canyon the heat would be rising to well over a hundred degrees in a few hours, while up here on the rim it would be about five or ten degrees cooler on average. Above me the sky was a dull brass and the sun already beat down mercilessly. Heat waves danced in the distance and their shimmering lines painted imaginary lakes across the horizon. I'd known men that followed those lakes in search for water. They had all died chasing the relief of water in the desert that they would never find. My clothes were already stiff with dried sweat and now I felt it trickling down my cheeks and back. I stopped an hour or so after leaving the ranch and ate some jerked meat washed down with canteen water. It sloshed around, half-empty. There would be water in Nipton, if the Legion hadn't poisoned that, too, and I could get supplies there as well. I took my hat from my head and wiped the sweatband, sloshed a little water on my brow, then combed out my hair with my fingers.

Something flickered in the brush ahead of me. Instantly I was on my belly, rifle in hand with the hammer cocked, and I was studying that brush like a Brotherhood Scribe studying some ancient text. I saw it again a few minutes later, a flicker of light like sunlight on a rifle barrel or a blade. I inched my way through the brush, crawling on my belly for a bit and then after a few yards I rose to a crouching walk. I saw the light two more times as whoever it was shifted position. I wanted to get a shot at him, but when I got to a spot where I could see through the brush I saw that it was a Recruit legionnaire. He was on his belly and he had him a new-looking Hunting Rifle in his hands, and he was looking down into the canyon over that rifle's sights. He was situated behind a shelf of rock that would make him invisible from below and his outline was hidden from view from the south and north by a thick stand of creosote bush. If I had come up that canyon along the road, he would have killed me.

He was watching down into that canyon pretty intently. He wasn't just looking for pursuit or waiting to ambush some poor passerby for loot and gear. There were better places around the rim where a man would have a better field of fire and greater visibility over the surrounding area and where he could go down to collect his kill easier. That spot he was in was right on top of a sheer drop of thirty or more feet with a steep talus slope at the bottom of that. To me, he seemed to be acting more like a sentry or a lookout.

I put down my repeater, real gentle-like, and with careful fingers I slid my Bowie from its sheath. I moved up closer to him, choosing each step with care and keeping to the soft earth where my boots would make no sound. I held that knife low and with the cutting edge up, ready for a strike, and I kept my left hand up and ready to block or grasp. He just had no idea that I was there at all. He was completely focused on the canyon floor and he didn't think that anyone could come up on him through that brush. He should've spent a little time fighting Tribals before they sent him out here.

I was about five feet from him when he started to turn his head my way. Whether it was to check his back or just to crane his neck and loosen the muscles, I don't know. All I knew was that I could let him see me first and try to bring that rifle up or shout down to anyone that might be around. I ran those last couple of steps and hooked my left hand around his mouth to stifle the cry that he'd started to make. His hand reached for the machete at his belt, but before his fingers could close around the haft I drew the blade of that Bowie across his throat and severed both major vessels. I held him tight and he flopped around some for a bit, but after a minute or so he went limp and then he was dead.

Scooping up the dead man's rifle and ammunition, of which there wasn't much, I moved back into the rocks a little ways and found a spot where there was a crack in a huge shelf of rock that would let me look down in the canyon and remain unseen myself. That fella had been looking down there without his rifle trained on the road, which told me that he wasn't looking for an ambush. He was guarding something, something down there in the road. I slipped up to that crack in the rock and took off my hat before peeking up over the rock shelf.

There were twenty of them in all. It looked like there were a dozen young women, most of them between the ages of about fifteen to twenty with a couple that might have been thirteen or so and one that looked to be in her thirties, and huddled in the middle of the group there were five little boys. None of them could have been older than nine years old. The women and boys were huddled against the rock wall in a kind of cubby or hollow place, and in the mouth of the hollow were standing three legionnaires, one Veteran and two Recruits. They had a fire going and I could smell that spicy food of theirs cooking, mixed in with the smell of some kind of strong tea that I didn't recognize.

The prisoners were eating what looked like rice and some kind of vegetables and their guards were along the side of the road in sort of a three-pointed half-circle around the captives. One of them, the Veteran, was cutting up an apple with his knife and eating it in the strips while the two Recruits were joking back at forth and pointing at the group of captives. I couldn't tell exactly what was being said, some of it being in their Latin-like tongue, but I definitely heard "That one's mine" and "She's a good one".

From my position to that camp it couldn't have been more than sixty yards. It was an easy shot, even though the cliff and the downward angle would make it more difficult than usual. I eased my rifle up and took a bead on the Veteran's chest.

I had never really liked killing from ambush. Somehow it just seemed low to me. The men that I put down had certainly killed more than a few men from hiding, and even some women and kids, but the thought of shooting a man when he didn't know it was coming had always irked me whenever we would lay in wait for a Legion patrol or raiding party. This time, though, I didn't feel a thing. All I could think of was the sight of my family's bodies back there at the farm. These men had been there for that. It might be even be that same Veteran that had brought the blade down on my Ma, my brother and sisters, and my Jenny. My Jenny . . .

I took a fine bead on his chest and wrapped my finger around the trigger, tightening it ever so slightly, then took in a breath and let it out slowly. The gun jumped in my hands and the report of the shot echoed like a cannon through the canyon and I saw dust leap from his armor. His body jerked and he stiffened up a moment as he fell forward into the sand. I levered another round in and shifted targets to the nearest Recruit, who was swinging his repeater up from the sling on his shoulder. I took quick aim and fired, seeing dust jump from his armor and red cloak, then fired again as fast as I could work the lever.

A bullet struck the rock a foot from my face, showering me with fragments. I replaced the shell and shifted to the last Recruit, who was darting into the cover of an alcove in the rock. He was near the captives where a bullet might ricochet off the rock wall and potentially hurt one of them, so I would have to watch my fire. I rolled over twice and held a steady aim on the spot where the Recruit had vanished behind the rocks, my finger on the trigger and taking up slack little by little. I couldn't see anything of him behind the solid red wall. Then I looked closer. I could see a bit of his sandal just peaking out from the bottom of the rock wall, just the end of the leather sandal and a few of his toes.

I squeezed off my shot and saw blood spray from his foot and onto the sandy canyon floor. He screamed in pain and fell into the open, holding his bloody leg, and before I could lever another shot off he brought up his .357 Revolver and thumbed off a shot, then another, both of which struck the rock near me. I rolled back over to my original position and started to take aim at him again, but a movement behind him stopped me. He was starting to pull himself up on his one good leg, thumbing the hammer of his revolver and spraying the canyon rim with bullets, when suddenly the oldest of the women and the two thirteen-year-olds jumped him. The oldest girl had taken the machete off the dead Veteran, and once the Recruit was down there was a flash of light on the blade, a yell and a grunt of pain, and then some of the happiest cheers that I have ever heard.

A minute or so goes by before I decide it's safe to leave my place in the rocks. Carefully I rise from my spot, rifle held high and my muscles bunched in anticipation of a bullet. Those shots would have echoed down the canyon for a long ways, maybe even to Nipton or close to it, and there was no way of knowing if their was another man in hiding somewhere. They'd had one sniper on lookout, so why not two? My every muscle was ready for the shot and I was ready to dive for cover again at any second as I rose from the low jumble of rocks. Nothing. Nothing happened. No shot, no bullet, no nothing.

I picked my way down the slope of the canyon by an eyebrow of trail that just barely showed against the rock. By the time I got down to the canyon floor the now free captives were already digging into the food that had been cooking over the fire. The spices smelled stronger now and it was almost like my nose was on fire with every breath. I don't think they really cared how hot it was. Those legionnaires had been eating some kind of chicken and rice stew and that strong tea, while the prisoners had been given just a little bit of rice that, judging by the little that was on the ground where they had thrown it down, had just been barely cooked. They were all thin and probably hadn't been fed more than the bare minimum for a day or two. I was a mite hungry myself but I didn't say anything. They needed it more than me.

Quickly I went from one corpse to the other and collected their weapons, gear, and ammo. The Veteran had been the best armed of the lot with a Cowboy Repeater and a .357 mag revolver, while the Recruits had a Caravan Shotgun and a revolver, respectively, plus their machetes. I laid the guns out and checked the actions and the loads, counted out the ammunition, and set down to contemplating on the situation. I had to get back to Nelson and report on what I'd seen, but now I was stuck with a passel of worn-out refugees that just a moment before had been on their way to a slaver's camp. I had to get them off somewhere safe, and something told me that I couldn't just sent them back home.

"All right," I said when they had eaten their fill, "what happened?"

"We're from Nipton," the oldest girl replied, "or, at least, we were. A group of Legion came into town the other day and took over the town. They held a lottery for the people in town and the Powder Gangers, but the NCR soldiers that were in town they just killed outright. They handed out the tickets one by one and read off the results like death sentences. They killed most of them with machetes, the rest they crucified."

"Powder Gangers?"

"Convicts from the prison. They've been raiding the desert for a couple of weeks now. They took over the prison and killed all the guards and ever since they've been calling themselves the Powder Gangers. I guess all that dynamite and blasting powder they use went to their heads."

Great. As if things couldn't get any better. A Legion invasion force at Cottonwood Cove, a massive raiding party on the loose in the southern Mojave, and now a whole prison's worth of convicts on the loose with government explosives. Fan-fuckin'-tastic.

"What happened in Nipton? How did they take the town without a fight?"

"The mayor sold us out to the Powder Gangers, thinking they could capture the NCR troops and sell off their loot. The Legion were supposed to just take the soldiers, but they rounded us all up in the town square and made us all watch while they burned the mayor alive on a pyre. Then they singled out the young girls and kids and took us all out of the crowd for slaves, then handed out those damn lottery tickets. The first ones to draw were hacked to death, then the second round were burned, and then they crucified the last set.

"Two men were left at the end. They drew their tickets and one of them was allowed to go free. Some skinny little punk with glasses who thought he was the luckiest man alive. The other they just beat half to death with hammers. They crippled his legs and then just locked him in the general store to die."

"That's the Legion for ya. How many are there?"

"Twenty or so came into town. They took the town without a fight, but after the drawing their commander sent some of his men north into the mountains. He told them to 'set up shop' somewhere out of the way. They took the Powder Gangers that were left with them as slave labor."

"Did the commander have a wolf skin on his head and carry a Ripper? Sunglasses, a deep voice, and a cold presence?"

"Yeah, that's him."

Vulpes Inculta . . .

A scream came from the camp and caught my attention. I looked over and saw one of the younger girls pointing up into the rocks along the canyon rim, and when I followed her pointing finger I saw a flash of red vanishing into the jumble of boulders and brush. I upped with my rifle and took a quick aim at the movement, following it through the rocks at likely places where a man might come out of cover. A patch of red appeared between two boulders and I fired, levering in another shell before the report even died away. There was a shout of pain and I saw blood on the rocks, but the man was gone and I didn't see him again. A rock fell from the cliff a hundred yards down the canyon a minute later and then I saw a faint column of dust rising against the copper sky. He was gone, and he was heading straight toward Nipton. Aww, damn.


	4. Chapter 4

No one needed to tell me that I was really in for it. There I was in the middle of the Mojave with no food, little enough water, and enemies in every possible direction, and now here I was stuck with a passel of women and kids that all looked to be on the ragged edge. That man that I wounded would be hurt bad, for I was fairly certain that I'd gotten him in the body or at least the arm or shoulder, but Nipton was just a few miles to the west and I knew that he would be going for help. The shooting may not have alerted anyone, for the canyon walls would have shielded the sound somewhat, but once he got to town with my bullet in him it was sure to bring a whole world of hurt down on us. I'd killed their men and I'd spoiled their raid, and now I'd taken their captives as well. If I knew the Legion at all, they would have me fitted for a cross as soon as they heard the wounded man's report.

There was no time to waste, so we wasted none. I went back to the dead legionnaires and searched them again, this time for supplies and their canteens. The canteens were mostly full, having been filled in town, and there was a good supply of rice and that strong tea, but there was little else and it would not be enough for eighteen of us. The real problem was water. None of the prisoners had any on them and the canteens wouldn't last the lot of us long at all. Even with careful rationing, there wouldn't be enough for more than a day. I had to get these people to a safe place and the nearest safe town would have to be Novac, a full two days' walk from here and over some mighty rough terrain.

As soon as they were all done eating, I kicked dirt over the fire and took the pot off its hook to be carried away. I gave the dead sniper's Hunting Rifle and the little ammunition he'd had to that oldest girl. I asked around to see if any of the others had any firearms experience, and when the oldest boy and one of the other ladies raised their hands I gave the repeater to the boy and one of the revolvers to the girl and the repeater to the boy. He took that rifle like he was born to it, which most boys were in this hard land, and that girl took the revolver tentatively but with a calm assurance of familiarity. As for that oldest gal, she taken that Hunting Rifle in her hands and tested the action and the sights just as any First Recon sniper would. She had sand, that one.

I took out my store of ammunition and filled the loops in my belt, reloaded my repeater, and handed out a few handfuls of cartridges to the boy and the younger girl. I taken that spare revolver and filled the empty chambers, then stuck it behind my belt and led the way east. We came out of the canyon and turned north just above the ruins of Wolfhorn Ranch. We spread out as much as was safely possible and went at a slow pace so as to kick up as little dust as possible. I led off at the head of the column, with that oldest gal and her rifle off on the left flank, the younger girl on the right, and the boy and his repeater bringing up the rear.

There was no chance of wiping out our trail. Most of the time I preferred to move quiet and fast and to wipe out my trail whenever possible, but this time there was just no way. Eighteen people churn up a lot of dirt and leave a lot of tracks and looking back on our back trail I could see that even a blind man could follow us in the dark. We had to move fast, but the kids would slow us down and most of the women looked to be in bad shape. It was likely that those Legion bastards had been at them had been at them, or planned to, and all of them had been roughed up in one way or another. That camp back there hadn't been a regular day's camp. Those fellows back there had probably planned to set up in that rocky hollow and have a go at those women in the privacy of the canyon, then head off and sell off what was left at Cottonwood Cove or the Fort. I shed no tears for them. The world was just short four more assholes.

It was slow going. The same ground I could have covered in a few hours on my own took us the rest of the day. We camped in a hollow in the hills where there was cover and where a fire could be made in concealment, although I chanced only a hatful of flame made from creosote bush that would offer no smoke. Looking back, I couldn't see any light or smoke from other fires, but I had seen dust on our back trail for the last couple of hours. They were coming. Unless I missed my guess, they would catch us tomorrow and we would be out on the open desert when they did.

We cooked the last of the food that we'd taken from those legionnaires over our little fire and the oldest girl brewed up some of that tea. I preferred coffee most of the time but this Legion stuff wasn't half bad. It was dark and strong and almost as good as the stuff that we Rangers had in our own camps. I drank little, knowing that the others needed it more than me, and I ate only a little jerky that was left in my satchel. I allowed all of them a swallow or two of water, to save the supply, but even with my rationing we used up most of what we had between the tea and our own drinking. We had to have water and we had to have it soon or else the desert heat would account for most of us. This kind of trip could kill even a healthy man and most of this crowd was in bad shape, either from their ordeal in Nipton or from the hard trek we'd made. The kids were done in and most of the women were tired and stiff, all except for that oldest one. She looked like she had just been out for a Sunday stroll and she squatted near the fire with that rifle across her knees like she was a woman born to it.

It's strange how times can be so hard and so violent and yet still bring out some fine things at the same time. I was still reeling from the loss of my Jenny, although I did my best to keep it inside, but looking at that red-headed woman across the fire made me remember that there was still some good left in the world. She was a beautiful woman, even with all the dirt, grime, and blood that was on her face and arms. She had a fine shock of bright red hair almost orange when it was clean, and her skin was the color of nutmeg. She was a few inches shorter than me, then again I do stand six feet and four inches in my socks, when I have socks, and she was built like a woman that had seen hard work in her time. I had thought her to be in her thirties when I first saw her from the ridge, but now that I got a good look at her she looked much closer to my own age. None of the twenty years of my life had offered me anything in the way of softness or ease and many a man said that I looked much older than my years. This woman looked to be in the same boat.

Dawn came too soon, as it often does, and when I rolled out of my blanket and started them going again there was just the faintest light in the east. They were all stiff from the day before and none of them wanted to get started, but after a tongue lashing from me they all got up and we headed out again. I didn't like speaking harshly to women and kids like that, but there was little else I could do to get them going. It was a damn sight better than what they would have gotten from the Legion. Those legionnaires back yonder would have run them till they dropped and killed the ones that fell behind. Only the boys would have been spared, since the Legion was always willing to take in and brainwash youngsters to fight for them. I'd seen kids that old and younger taken into training camps and taught to kill before they were old enough to have zits on their face. I'd had to kill them, too.

Just before we left I offered one last pass of the canteens. They were all low when they came back around to me, with one of my own and two of those from the legionnaires coming back empty and the last two with just a finger or two of water left in them. I poured the last of the water into one canteen and lashed the others together, handing them to a little girl with a pretty smile to carry, and then we set out across the desert once more in the same manner as before.

We had to have water, and I knew it. The air was cool and there was a soft breeze when we started out in the morning, but in less than an hour the sun was up and the heat of the day was already beating down on us. Heat waves danced across the horizon and our clothes were soon dark with sweat stains. The kids were soon dragging their feet, and I was too, but we couldn't stop. That dust was still in the distance behind us when I looked over my shoulder, and they were getting closer. Those men back there would be fit and moving fast, and they would have blood in their eyes after seeing the bodies of their comrades. They would all want to get at the women as well, and have the honor of taking back the captives. Any other time I would have gone back and laid a little ambush for them, but this was no ordinary time. I had a taste for Legion blood and there was still a long way to go before I could call my family avenged, but I had to get these people to safety before I went out hunting scalps.

I led the way across a barren landscape and under a brassy sky. The heat was becoming unbearable and way off in the distance I could see the faint blue of faraway lakes that weren't there. A couple of the kids said they wanted to go to them, but I knew better. Those mirage lakes were one of the desert's many cruel tricks and one that had lured many a good man to his death. I kept them all moving and pointed the way north and slightly east toward Broc Flower Cave. The cave was a good landmark, standing alone on the bare flat the way it did, and there was a sort of natural water tank there where rainwater and runoff collected. The winter had been a rainy one, so there should still be water in that tank. It was irradiated, probably from some hidden pile of waste deep in the ground, but it would be worth the risk. Without that water, we'd never make it into Novac. We'd get some radiation poisoning from it, but I still had some Rad-X left and the doc in Novac could take care of us . . . if we made it there.

It was hot. Terribly, horrendously hot. After a few hours of walking my boots started to feel heavy, sweat stained my shirt and trickled down my brow, and when I tried to wet my cracked lips my tongue was dry and swollen. I wanted to stop for a drink and a rest, but I knew we couldn't stop. That dust was getting closer all the time and there was nothing ahead of us but a lot of dry land and danger. Hard men lurked out here, Vipers, Scorpions, and now Powder Gangers, not to mention the Golden Geckos that lurked around that old nuclear lab to the northeast and the Deathclaws that were supposed to be migrating south. They usually stayed to the west of here along the Long 15, but they'd been known to come over the mountains.

"They're coming, aren't they?"

The voice came from off to my right, and when I turned to look I saw that tall red-haired girl. She was walking just behind me now and she looked dead beat, as we all did, but there was still that fire in her eyes and she carried that rifle like it was ready to swing up at any moment.

"Yes, they are."

"Pretty plain about it, aren't you? The least you could do is dress it up for me."

"Nothing to dress up. They're comin', plain and simple. If they catch us, we'll have a fight and I doubt that we'll be able to stand them off for long."

"I thought so. I saw the dust. Looks like a dozen or so."

"Less. They like to kick up extra dust to make it look like there's more of them than there really are. I'd say there's about five or six men in that group. That's still too many for just us to handle out on this open ground."

"I can fight. So can Reese, if the time comes."

"Reese?"

"The boy you gave the rifle to. I've seen him shoot before and he's good. His father was the best hunter in town."

"He's still just a kid. I'd rather leave him out of it, but a man has to do what he has to do when the time comes. I wasn't much older than him when I had my first fight."

"I've seen younger boys in worse situations. There's been a lot of that going around these last few years. By the way, I'm Angeline. I didn't catch your name."

"I didn't offer it."

She didn't like that, and I didn't blame her. I was being a first-rate douche bag right now and any other time I would be kicking myself for being so rude, but this was no time for talking to a woman. She was pretty enough, take that grime off and she'd be downright beautiful, but I was in no mood to be around or concerned with a woman now. Besides, my Jenny was just barely in the ground. I hadn't had time to mourn for her and the others, and it wasn't likely that I would any time soon, and look at her and that fine shock of red hair only made me think of Jenny.

It was getting hotter and I was starting to drag my feet more. My skin was red from the sun and when I tried to wet my lips my tongue was like a piece of sandpaper. My vision was getting foggy and my head was swimming, but I kept plodding along as best as I could. Angeline was in the same shape, but the two of us had it easy. I could only imagine what those kids were going through. A couple of times I looked back at them and saw the little ones either falling behind or being helped by the older kids. The girls looked beaten up and worn out, their hair matted and dirty and their clothes grimy from travel and their ordeal, but they were still going. Most of them had been raised out here and they knew what they had to do. They all knew what would happen if we didn't get to that water. Or if those legionnaires caught up to us.

We topped out on a ridge and I looked to the northeast, and about three or four miles away I saw the lone rocky peak that would be Broc Flower Cave. It was a single spur of rock rising over an otherwise flat and open desert where little else grew besides dry grass, barrel cactus, and, of course, broc flowers. The sky was a brass dome above us and the sun was almost at its noon zenith now. A couple more hours in this heat and we'd be done for. I went back and gathered up the kids and told them we'd have to move fast now, picking up one of the little girls and telling the bigger girls to carry the smaller ones. Angeline picked up another girl, her rifle hanging by the sling across her back just as mine was, and we were off.

Twice I looked over my shoulder to look for dust, but it wasn't there anymore. Now where would they have gone? By rights, they should be gaining on us or even have caught us by now. Why would they stop? Had they given up? There was no chance of that. They had to catch us. They had to get their captives back and they had to avenge their men. Where were they? If only my radio worked! Several times I'd tried to get a signal on it, but apparently the radiation from Searchlight was still interfering with it. It wouldn't be much longer now. It was just another mile. Just one more mile.

I could smell the water before we got to it. It was that fresh, cool, moist smell that I had taken for granted many a time. We all smelled it, and when we came closer the kids all got a spring in their steps. A flock of crows came up out of the hollow at our approach. They had been enjoying the coolness of the hollow and the shade that the lone little peak offered. That water was like a thing out of heaven, catching the light of the sun and sparkling like a bed of diamonds. I all but fell into the edge of it, putting the little girl I'd been carrying down at the water's edge and letting her drink. I cupped my hands and poured some into my mouth, loving the delicious cool of it and letting the moisture soak into my system. It was brackish and had a sort of metallic taste, probably from the radiation, but it was water. Wonderful, cool, clear, life-giving water.

If there had been any legionnaires in the area, we would have been dead meat. We all just sort of collapsed on the ground at the water's edge and we drank our fill. Some of the girls went into the water and splashed it at each other, cooling off and having fun in their own way. I filled all the canteens and soaked my handkerchief, wrapping it around my neck and loving the cool feeling of it on my skin. I splashed some water on my face and neck, drank my fill, then took up my repeater and went up the short trail that led to the cave itself. The old plank door was walled up and there were rusty iron bars on the latch, apparently to keep the place locked up. The funny thing was that the locks were all fastened down and one of them had a key broken off in it, as if they were more to keep whatever was inside in rather than whatever's outside out.

I took out my binoculars and studied our back trail from the top of the rock spire, laying flat on the hot rocks and looking through a V-notch at the top where only the top of my head would be visible. I scanned our route and the sparse growth and brush that lay scattered over the plain, searching for any sign of pursuit I searched every fold of the land, every clump of brush for a red tunic, a glint of sunlight on a gun or a blade, dust from running footsteps, but there was nothing. Either we had lost them or they were just laying out there waiting for us to move on. Why would they do that? Why would they just sit there when we were sitting ducks? It was true that we had a good position here and from that shelf near the door a good rifleman could hold off a fairly large force, but they had to know that we had only two or three people who could fight.

Something came into my mind then, something that Angeline had said earlier about men being sent ahead. Suppose there were men up ahead of us? I looked back down into the hollow where the women and children were playing and laying in the sparse shade. They were tired. We were all done in, and I knew it. We had to have rest and food, and the sun was still beating down hard from high above us. Novac couldn't be more than ten or fifteen miles out, but there was little chance that we'd make it there today. We needed the rest, and nightfall would offer both cover of darkness and some much cooler walking. If there were men camped or waiting ahead of us somewhere, we would be easy prey right now.

The water was enough to last us for weeks if needed, but what we really needed was food. I'd been feeling hungry for the last few miles and right about now my stomach was starting to think that my throat had been cut. There were wild Bighorners in this country, but that would be too much meat to carry and it would take too long to butcher. Mole Rats were prevalent, too, and they would make for an easier kill and a big one would have just enough meat for the lot of us. It was a chance to go out hunting, but without food none of these youngsters would make it much farther. I scrambled down the rocks and found Angeline on the rock shelf in front of the cave door, her rifle trained on the desert and her eyes like those of a hawk. This was a woman who had been up the creek and over the mountain, all right.

"I'm going out hunting. These kids need some fresh meat and I wouldn't mind some myself. You keep a sharp eye and cover my back."

"You're crazy! There's Legion out there."

"Those that were behind us broke off somewhere. Didn't you say there were men up here already?"

"Yes. Their commander sent them this way to 'set up shop'. They had some Powder Gangers for workers and they took most of the supplies they brought in."

"How many?"

"Seven or eight, I think. They took some tents and building materials from town and most of the food. They said they were going northeast, somewhere near Charlie."

Ranger Station Charlie . . .

"That'll be somewhere near here. You keep that rifle handy and tell Reese to watch those kids close. Don't let any of them wander off. The last thing we need is some little girl getting lost in the rocks and crying for momma."

"Their mommas are mostly dead. I'll watch them. You be careful yourself, Ranger."

"Angeline, you're quite a woman. A man would be lucky to have you."

I took up my rifle and headed down the thread of trail that led to the plain below. I went to the water again and took two handfuls of it, then splashed some on my face and went to the edge of the hollow where Reese and two of the girls were watching the desert. I told him to be watchful and be careful with his rifle, then with a quick movement I was over the lip of the hollow and into the folds of the land just before it. I walked low and held my rifle ready. Out here the grazers could be just as dangerous as the predators. Bighorners roamed here and they would defend their herds with a vengeance, turning anything that came near their calves into a red pulp with those huge horns. Mole Rats were just as bad, defending their young viciously and attacking anything that came near them. I'd seen them bite men clean in half with those buck teeth.

The hills were to the west of me now, towering into a rocky escarpment at the peak that formed the lower arm of the Highland Range. Somewhere west of here was Ranger Station Charlie, nestled in a canyon and almost impossible to find if a body wasn't looking for it. They had a nice big radio tower there and would get better signal from my own radio. I hadn't tried it since coming to the cave, but I planned to try it again once I got back.

I wasn't much more than a hundred yards from the cave when I saw two Mole Rats feeding in a deep gash near the little bluff that went for hundreds of yards before falling out onto the barren plain to the east. The rats were big ones, two males, it looked like, and it was an easy shot. I raised my rifle and eared back the hammer, took a fine aim at the neck, and then fired. The big rat dropped in his tracks and his friend barked and bellowed at me. Another shot at his feet spooked him and he went running off into the desert. I'd known men that would have shot them both, but we only needed one and there was no reason to kill them just for the hell of it. I went down and dressed out my kill, skinned and quartered it, and put the meat in the skin to be hoisted over my shoulder. It was a heavy load, but I didn't have far to go. An hour's work and I was finished, and within ten minutes I was back at camp. The youngsters had already gathered some creosote bush and broc flower stalks for a fire along with some big banana yucca fruit.

We cooked the meat over two small fires that made almost no smoke, cutting the yucca fruit into slices and boiling water for more of that strong Legion tea. It was stout stuff, all right, and it was just what we needed. The meat was good and we all ate our fill, and after the meal the kids all laid out for a nap while Angeline and I stayed on the shelf on lookout. I took out the radio and tried it once or twice, but there was still nothin but static.

"So," Angeline said after a few minutes, "what brings you to this little corner of hell?"

"I was sent to warn Searchlight and Nipton about the Legion landing in Cottonwood."

"Well, I guess that mission was a failure."

"Only if I don't get you folks to safety. At least something will come out alright."

"If you say so. I know what those bastards will do if they catch up to us. You just keep believing that you can get us through and I'll keep covering your ass while you try. All I know is that if they get me then they'll step over a few friends to do it."

"Just out of curiosity, how does a woman like you end up in a town like Nipton? I never got there myself, but I hear it was a lively place. Seems like a woman like you would be better out in the wastes."

"I was out there for a while. I went over the trail to Utah a couple times with the caravans, roamed around California for a while, I even went east into Arizona back before Caesar got a hold of that particular area. I lived in Colorado for a little while, but my husband was killed and I had to drift again."

"You were married?"

"Sort of. No priests or ceremonies like in New Canaan, but we were good to each other."

"It was the same with my wife and me. No priests or ceremonies, but I loved her."

"Loved?"

"She was with my folks back at Wolfhorn Ranch. Then these Legion guys came through. No one made it out."

"I'm sorry."

"So am I. So, what does a pretty wanderer do in a town of hustlers and whores?"

"I worked in one of the brothels. Top floor."

Now that was a shocker. A tough woman like her, I never would have guessed that she was a top-cap working girl. She was certainly beautiful enough, but there was just something about her spirit that made me think that she wouldn't do such a thing. But times were hard and a lot of women turned to it when there wasn't much else. I couldn't blame her and she lost none of my respect. If anything, I half-wished that I had taken time to visit Nipton myself before me and Jenny were together. Then again, she probably hadn't been there that long. It would have been money well spent.

A crackle came over the radio in my hand and a voice penetrated the static for a second, catching both of our attentions. I worked the tuning knob and the signal came in a little clearer, then a little clearer, and a little more until finally the voice came through loud and clear.

"_This is Ranger Station Charlie broadcasting to persons unknown. Do you copy?_"

"Affirmative," I answered back, "this is Daniel Weathers, Bravo Company, Mojave Rangers out of Nelson. I am traveling toward Novac with seventeen civilian hostages, mostly children. Am being pursued by Legion forces, request immediate assistance."

"_Legion? No Legion around here, Ranger._"

"Negative, negative, large Legion force in vicinity. Searchlight and Nipton are gone, I repeat, Searchlight and Nipton are gone. Multiple hostiles in pursuit, more in the hills at some kind of camp. Request immediate assistance from any nearby force."

We went back and forth for a while, me and that comms officer, and he just didn't believe me. Well, maybe he just _couldn't _believe me. After all, who would have thought that a Legion force could penetrate so deep into NCR territory so easily? If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes I doubt that I would have believed it myself. Finally I got him to listen and he said that all forces were engaged at that moment, that most of the Rangers and soldiers at the station had already been sent to Nelson to reinforce the garrison, but that he would do all he could for us. In the meantime he would radio ahead to Novac and advise them of our situation. A lot of good that would do us, but at least it was something.

I didn't blame them. If there were Legion in the area and most of their men were on the way to Nelson, then that meant that there couldn't be more than half a dozen or less Rangers in the station. Charlie was in a good spot and could be easily defended against a small force, but if that whole raiding party decided to attack it then they would be in for a hard fight. We would be in for one ourselves, assuming that we got out at all.

The sun was going down now, almost halfway behind the mountains. It wasn't close to full night yet, but the mountains' shade would give us a couple more hours of coolness in which to travel. I was tired, damn tired, but we needed to move. With luck, and we would need it, we would make Novac by the middle of the night. The sun sank behind the western mountains and the air almost immediately became cooler, the heat of the day swiftly giving way to the night air. When the sun was completely shaded behind the high peaks, I picked up my rifle, clipped the radio to the back of my belt, and with Angeline behind me we went down to the hollow and quietly roused those that were asleep.

The ground was hot under our boots when we started north again. The sand and loose soil gave off a heat like a furnace, but the night air was already cooling off the desert and the wind coolly kissed the sweat on our clothes. It's funny how cool it gets in the desert at night. Hell, sometimes it gets downright cold. In the winter months there was even snow on the higher hills for a couple of months. As I walked along at the head of the column, my rifle held by the action in my left hand, I couldn't help but marvel at the beauty of the sunset. The sun was still up and would be for a couple of hours, but the light coming over the mountains was as pretty as any real sunset. The golds, oranges, yellows, reds, and purples shone on the thin air like some Old World painting. It was one of those rare and beautiful things that a body just takes for granted most of the time.

"Prepare yourself for battle, profligate! Your end has come!"

There were five of them, that I could see, and they came over the low ridge to the left of us like specters out of the desert. They'd been just watching us, probably for hours, and they let us just get started before they came for us. Typical Legion. Give them just a little hope, then come out and crush that hope in an instant.

Like a damn fool, I'd been walking with my rifle in one hand and my hand on the action. There was just no chance of getting that gun up in time to do any good. The one that had spoken was in the center of the line of men, directly to my left, and he was raising a throwing spear for a shot. He was a tall Veteran, stocky and well built under his armor, and the rest were Recruits and another Veteran all armed with rifles of one sort or another. They had us dead to rights, or so they thought.

I had never been one to pause and panic or try to think when the time for action came. I was always one to go at my problems head on and let the cards fall where they may. So when that fella on the hill spoke and I turned to look at him, I just palmed my six-shooter and fired. It's easier to draw to the left than to the right, and from the angle they had they could only see my rifle and the revolver in my belt. They probably thought that I was left-handed or something, so that gun in my hand came as something of a shock.

That first man fell to the ground at my first shot, dropping his spear and grabbing at his neck with both hands. My sudden shot had caught them all flat-footed and for just a brief second they all stood there in shock. It was all I needed. As soon as that first man was down, I thumbed the hammer and fired at a Recruit to my right. He took the bullet in the chest and his body jerked with the impact, so I thumbed another shot that hit him in the neck. The ball was open now and I dropped my rifle and drew the other pistol with my left hand. Angeline's rifle boomed somewhere behind me and I saw flame leap from the guns of the legionnaires, but I didn't move. I just stood where I was, hammering away with both revolvers.

I must have looked a sight, standing there in all that hell like some idiotic statue, but at that particular moment I just didn't give a damn. They had us in the open and with our guns down, outnumbered and outgunned, and for all I knew it was all over right now. So if this was the end then I intended to take as many of them with me as possible. I owed it to my family, to the people in Searchlight, to the ones they had murdered in Nipton, to all of their victims. If this was my time to go to Hell, then I wasn't going alone.

I fired both pistols at the nearest man, the two shots sounding as one and dropping him where he stood. A man dropped as he came over the hill, his head all but vanishing in a spray of red mist. Angeline's .308 packed a lot of punch at that range. I heard a child scream and something burned my neck, but I kept firing. Bullets cut the air around me and the dirt at my feet. All five of the original attackers had either fallen or ducked for cover, but there were others coming over the hill. I thumbed a shot from my right-hand gun and hit a Veteran in the guts, making him crumple and fall, and when I thumbed back the hammer to finish him the gun clicked empty. I dropped it into my holster and fanned the spare with the heel of my hand, dropping him with a head shot.

The last two of them turned and ran away then, one of them holding his shoulder from a bullet that Angeline had put through him. I calmly ejected the shells from the spare revolver and thumbed new ones into the chambers, then stuck it behind my belt and reloaded my own gun as well. Dropping it into my holster again, I turned and picked up my rifle, wiped the dust and dirt from the action, and then turned to survey our situation.

In all, the whole action couldn't have lasted more than ten or twenty seconds. We'd dropped five of their men and wounded at least one more, but their side wasn't the only one that had bled. Turning around, I saw one of the younger girls had been hit in the leg by a stray bullet and that Reese, the brave boy who had fired his gun empty less than twenty feet from me, was dead. Two bullets had entered his chest within inches of each other. He was dead before he hit the ground. For once, I was grateful that the Legion trained their marksmen so well. He was looking up at the world with cold, dead eyes, and after lifting and checking his rifle I reached down and closed his lids.

Five men were down on the Legion side, but not all of them were dead. The man I'd shot in the throat was still alive, clutching at his wound with bloody hands and breathing with great heaving gasps that came out sounding like a sad harmonica. I left the women and kids to cry over Reese, which I was doing myself on the inside, and walked over to his side. He looked at me like a man possessed by hate. Normally I would feel sorry for him, but this time I looked into his eyes and felt nothing at all. He was dying from a bullet I'd put through him and he had deserved what he'd gotten. He and his had laid for a group of women and children and tried to gun them down in cold blood, they had massacred two whole towns and killed off everyone I ever loved, all without mercy. They would get no sympathy from me.

"Okay, pard, here's how this is gonna work. I'm gonna ask you two questions and you're gonna answer them. If you answer them to my satisfaction, I'll help you."

"And if . . . I . . . don't?"

His voice was little more than a raspy whisper from his ruined voice box.

"If you don't, I'll tie your hands and feet down and leave you for the Geckos. I got some attractant in my satchel that I use to hunt 'em. Lie to me or make me think you're lying and I'll dump the whole damn bottle on you and leave you here."

His eyes changed then. I had seen the eyes of countless legionnaires filled with hate, pride, bravado, and sometimes with hopelessness at the final moments before they pulled the trigger on themselves, but this time was different. This time it was something new; fear.

"Alright . . . I'll tell . . . you."

"Good. How many more of you are there?"

He tried to talk, but couldn't get the words out. He held out a bloody hand and held up four fingers.

"Where is your camp?"

With the same hand he pointed to the west and slightly south, indicating a high ridge with a double crest just a mile or so away. I knew there was a hollow just over that hill that would hold a fairly large camp and would offer good concealment. The Rangers had toyed with the idea of putting a station there but decided it was too far behind the lines to be worth the effort.

"Thanks. Now I guess I should help you out, so I'll make it quick."

I took out my knife and lifted his arm to open his veins, the humane way to finish him, but something stopped me. In looking down from his face towards his arm I just naturally glanced at his neck and chest, and when I saw what was hanging on the necklace he wore I almost wept. It was a silver chain with some kind of pendant hanging at the center but on the chain there were several rings, earrings, and charms that had apparently been taken from his kills. Most of them were rough, homemade jewelry that some man had made for his sweetheart or some woman had made for herself, but one stood out. It had a real gold band with a scroll pattern on it and a big piece of turquoise set as the stone. Jenny had always loved turquoise.

I ripped the necklace off him and took the ring from the broken chain. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. This was her ring. This bastard had been there when my family was massacred at Wolfhorn, he might even have been the one that brought the blade down on her. He had been there and he had taken this ring from her. This was my Jenny's ring!

"Where did you get this?", I held the ring close to his face so he could see it, "Where did you get this ring?!"

If he was afraid before, then he was downright petrified now. He saw the hatred and anger in my eyes and I did nothing to hold back the rage that was in my now. I was angry over it all now; over the death of my family, over the raids, over the tortured and murder at Nipton, and now the death of that poor boy just a few yards away. A good boy that had a whole life ahead of him and was now lying dead in the dust from a bullet that some Legion bastard put in him. And now this man had Jenny's ring, MY Jenny's ring!

"Where did you get this?! From Wolfhorn Ranch?! From a red-haired woman with a voice like an angel?! Where did you get this ring?!"

It took a moment for me to realize that I was shaking him by the collar of his armor. I was filled with a rage like I had never felt before and for the first time in my life I wanted to kill a man. He was scared and in pain now, but I felt nothing but an urge to kill. I wanted to rip him limb from limb and leave him staked out in the desert for the coyotes. I wanted him dead!

I sheathed the knife and stood up, trying to get my bearings. I had to calm down. I had to get my head on straight. I had to . . .

"She died screaming . . . and crying."

His voice was tortured and raspy with barely any life at all in it. I doubted that this man had ever had much life in him to begin with. He was smiling with bloody teeth and his hands were on his chest, apparently paralyzed, and there was blood flowing like a fountain from his wound. That was the last straw. I slid my gun from my holster, eared back the hammer, and brought it down for a shot.

"Ranger, no!", I hear Angeline shout behind me, but she's too late.

I don't aim, I just chop down with the gun and squeeze off the shot. My bullet finds its mark and I feel warm blood spatter on my pant legs. His body jerks and he screams in pain, but I hardly hear him I eject the shell and take a fresh one from my belt, thumb it into the chamber, then holster it again as I walk away from his bloody form and his raspy screams. Dying in the desert is a hard way to go. Especially with a hole in your guts.

A minute later and I've gathered all the ammo from the dead legionnaires and busted the stocks of their weapons on the nearby rock shelf. If these were the same men that had pursued us then that would mean that the ones who got away would be going for help now. We had to move and we had to move now. The girls had arranged Reese's body for burial, but there was no time to give him a decent funeral. They covered him in the one blanket they had between them and I took the rifle he'd died wielding to give to one of the older girls. We left then at a brisk pace, me in the lead again and with Angeline and the now armed girl, Sarah, on the left flank. This time I made sure to walk with my rifle in my hands and ready for action.

"That was awful," Angeline said after a couple miles, "the way you shot that man."

"He had it coming."

"Like that?"

"He killed my wife and my family. Trust me, he had it coming. They all have it coming."

We had to get to Novac fast. They had lain for us and we had been lucky to come out on top back there. My sudden action had caught them by surprise and given us that split-second of time to react. I knew that we would not be that lucky again. If they caught up to us again, we would be out on the open plain with no chance of taking cover or mounting a defense. They would just sit back in the rocks and pick us off from a distance.

We went by no trail and no path. The desert grew ever cooler in the shadow of the mountain and I could see, miles away, the last of the light from the sun shining over the peaks. Soon it would be full night and the predators would come out. Geckos, Nightstalkers, and Coyotes like to hunt by night and regularly attack even well-armed bands of humans if the opportunity came. I was hoping that if they preferred human meat that they would go for the easy pickings back there at Broc Flower Cave, especially that one with the gut wound. I wanted him to suffer bad, to know how I had felt on the inside when I saw his handiwork. I felt nothing for that man, nothing at all. Angeline could feel sorry for him and the others if she wanted to, but I would never feel that way again. They had taken too much from me for me to give a damn.

It was then that I remembered the stinging feeling on my neck. I put my hand to the spot just below my ear and it came away bloody. I felt again and found that there was a furrow about two inches below the ear where a bullet had taken away some skin, but no more. Another inch to the right and it would have gone through my jugular vein. I didn't feel any other wounds, but I had known men that had been shot several times over and not felt it a bit until it was pointed out to them. Adrenaline could do strange things to people.

The wounded girl was carried by one of the older ones, but she was still slowing us down. It would have been better to have a stretcher made for her, but there was no time to make one. I looked behind us from time to time and saw dust on our back trail. They were coming for us again, and this time they would be coming for blood. They wouldn't stop till they had us, and we had a long way to go.

We passed the rusted old hulk that had been there since the Old World times, something that the locals had been calling the Wrecked Highwayman for as long as anyone could remember, and faraway in the distance I could just make out the form of the large dinosaur statue that marked Novac and its hotel, although it was still just a dark shadow against the rising moon. There was a light beside the statue that could only be the hotel, and somewhere below it there was a barrel fire burning. It couldn't be more than five miles distant, then. We were already tired as hell and the fight had taken a lot out of all of us, as had the death of poor Reese, but we all knew that we had to keep moving. I looked at that dust cloud again and found it closer. They were pushing, all right. They wanted us bad.

We topped out on a low rise and looked into a valley of sorts where there stood an old shanty camp. It was comprised of several sheet-metal shelters that had been built by unskilled hands, all of which housed a rough sleeping cot and the remains of small fires. There was evidence of habitation everywhere, but we were lucky in that the inhabitants were gone at the moment. And it took only a moment for me to know who those inhabitants were. Piles of loot, cans and trash everywhere, parts and broken guns, this was a raider camp as clear as day. It would have to be Vipers, or perhaps Scorpions. Highway 95 was only a mile or two to the east, and beyond that was the old nuclear research lab where I'd heard a pack of Golden Geckos had taken up residence. Travelers steered clear of the lab compound and tried to stay as far west as they could, and they usually walked right into the waiting arms of the raiders. NCR troops had been patrolling the highway and they thought they had cleaned out the last of the outlaw gangs like this, but apparently they had missed one.

I led the group in a wide arc around the camp, skirting the bottom of the mountains and walking the shadow of the hills where our outline would be lost among the rocks. We were past the camp in a moment or two and there was no sign that anyone was coming back to the camp anytime soon. Novac was a mere two miles away. We were home free, if we could just slow down that pack of legionnaires that was coming up on our tail. Even as close as we were, they could still catch us if we couldn't slow them down. There had to be a way to make them ease up, there had to be a way to . . . wait a minute.

"Angeline," I said as I turned off from the head of the column, "keep them moving and don't stop until you get to Novac. Push 'em hard and watch out for these raiders."

"What are you gonna do?"

"I've got a damn fool idea. Maybe it's just damn fool enough to work."

"Then I'll stay here with you."

"There's no time to argue."

"Then don't! There's nothing between here and Novac except us and those Bulls and whatever you have planned, you're sure to need an extra rifle."

I hated to admit it, but she was right. There was no time to argue and the land between here and Novac was clear, for the raiders were almost sure to be on the highway where there would be quarry and booty close to their camp, which was what I was counting on. I had me an idea of what to do, and damned if even I didn't think that I was fool for even thinking it.

"Alright, then. Come on with me. You kids get moving and don't stop for anything."

I ran into the camp with Angeline on my heels while those kids, tired and scared, made for that distant dinosaur. I was almost scared to see them go, but there was just no other way. We had to slow those legionnaires, or else none of us would get to the town. I led the way into the camp and went to one of the shanties where I'd seen some rusty ammo cans. I tried the lids and found them locked, but I broke the locks with my knife and found just what I wanted. Proximity mines, lots of them. I took several of them and handed some to Angeline, and together we spread them quickly around the camp in likely places where men would have to pass to come in. In addition to that, I quickly rigged my two grenades on trip wires in two of the shanties on the south side of the camp. In all it couldn't have taken more than five to eight minutes, and in mere seconds we were both in the rocks on the north of the camp where there was cover.

Minutes ticked slowly by as we laid on the rocks, still warm from the day's heat, our rifles trained on the camp and waiting for a target to present itself. There was no dust in the distance and the night was growing darker, almost full night. There was just the faintest hint of light on the peaks of the mountains. The sun would have to be almost down now, so the raiders would be coming back from whatever ambush they had set on the road. Those legionnaires that had been on us would be coming along soon and I was hoping that they did not know about this camp. Odds were that they would come up on it unawares, as we had, but if they had scouted the area at all then they would know it was here and try to skirt around it.

"That was really something back there, Ranger," Angeline whispered after a moment.

"What's that?"

"The way you just took out your gun and opened the ball like that. I've never seen anyone get a gun out that fast before."

"I didn't think anything of it. I just drew and fired."

"And what about that last one? The one you shot in the belly?"

"He had my wife's ring."

I sensed a change in her mood then and I knew that I didn't have to explain anymore. She had been in the Wastes and she knew the life, so I could imagine that she knew my reasons well enough. She had said that her husband had died. Maybe she had been in a similar position at one time. Others might have questioned or condemned me for what I'd done, but I had the feeling that she would have done the exact same thing or maybe even had done the same thing.

"Here they come."

They were plain to see coming over the rise south of the camp. Their red uniforms and armor stood out from the desert and they came in a staggered column with their weapons up and at a steady run. They ran like marathoners over the flats, but at the sight of that camp they slowed up. Good, they didn't know about it beforehand. They came into the camp slowly and steadily, all of them looking around tentatively as they came. There were two Recruits and a Veteran with a Decanus in the lead, and as they came closer I held my sight on the Decanus' chest. I heard the safety of Angeline's Hunting Rifle click off beside me, and as they came closer and closer I began to slowly take up slack on the trigger. Just a little closer . . . just a little closer . . .

Something spooked the Recruit in the rear of the column after they had entered the camp and I knew that he would had tripped the first mine. He shouted something to the others and dove away from the shack he'd peeked into, just a second ahead of an explosion that gutted the hut completely and sent pieces of wood and sheet metal into the air. Our two rifles sounded as one and I saw the Decanus drop and one of the Recruits' uniform spurt blood and dust. Instantly I worked the lever on my repeater and fired three fast shots at the two men still standing. They turned and sprayed bullets at the rocks where we were hidden and I felt shards of lead and jackets sting my face and neck. Two fast strides and they were behind the first couple of shanties. I took aim and fired five shots just as fast as I could work the lever, all aimed low and going along a line at the bottom of the huts. I heard someone scream in pain and there were more return shots, but those bullets hit empty cover.

As soon as that last shot was fired, I was up and moving and thumbing shells into my repeater as I ran. Angeline was right behind me and I heard her slip her last stripper clip into her Hunting Rifle. There were more shots from the legionnaires, but I was listening for more as we ran. Sure enough, not even a minute after we left our cover there were two more explosions in quick succession, then a thunderous roar of shots from what had to be a half a dozen guns. I guess those raiders had come running at the sound of that first mine, which I'd been counting on, and they were none too happy to find company waiting in camp.

We ran for all we were worth for almost half a mile, then we slowed to a walk and took a big drink form our canteens. They were running low and mine sounded like it had only a couple of swallows left in it, but it wouldn't have to last much longer. There was still shooting back at the camp and the shots echoed like cannons off of the stoic hills and mountains, losing themselves in the high desert air after only a few seconds. We ran neck and neck towards that distant dinosaur that marked our destination, now only a mile or so distant, and before we knew it we were coming up the old broken highway and into the town of Novac. A resident hailed us from the broken-down gas station that did for a workshop and after my answer he lowered his gun and we passed unmolested.

"What the hell happened out there?", he asked when we came in, and for the first time I noticed that he was wearing a First Recon beret.

"Legion. We got 'em into a raider camp and those raiders didn't like it much."

"Legion? This far north?"

"Yeah. A big force landed at Cottonwood Cove and they've raided all the way to Nipton. We had some others coming ahead of us, a dozen kids, mostly girls, coming from the south. Did they make it?"

"Yeah, man. They came in a few minutes ago. I sent 'em down to the hotel. Doc Straus is looking in on them and Mrs. McBride is fixing up some Brahmin steaks for them. You guys look like you're beat."

"We are. We've been through it. By the way, I'm Ranger Dan Weathers of the Mojave Rangers and this is Angeline."

"Pleased to meet you. I'm Manny Vargas. Up there in Dinky is Boone, our night sniper, and up on the station is Ranger Andy, our constable."

I looked up on the roof of the old station and, sure enough, there was a grizzled old man in Combat Armor that I knew as Ranger Andy Walker. He was well known for his exploits in the Rangers and we'd been sorry to see him go. This town didn't know how fortunate they were to have him as a constable. And Vargas had said that there was a guy name Boone in the dinosaur. Boone . . . I'd heard that name before. Some said he was as good a shot or better than I was, but I had never made it into town to find out for sure. Just maybe . . .


	5. Chapter 5

I can't remember the last time I slept so soundly. Normally I'd have been kicking myself for letting myself sleep so deeply, but this time I just couldn't help it. Jeannie May Crawford set me up with a room, Angeline as well, and the children were put up either in one of the bungalows or at the McBride house. It was the first time in months that I'd seen a real bed, let alone one as big as that one. The room they gave me was just above the office at the head of the stairs to the second floor and it was well furnished, having a table and chairs, full chest of drawers with a safe on the inside, and even a couple of dressers that had a few odds and ends of loose or forgotten clothing that had been left by previous renters. There was even a full bathroom complete with a sink - with running water! Hell, they even put a teddy bear on the bed for good measure.

I left Angeline a few minutes after we got into town. We exchanged a few words with Manny Vargas and Ranger Andy, but the both of us were dead-beat tired and needed our rest. Jeannie May offered us a change of clothes and the chance to have our own washed, and we both eagerly took her up on it. My own clothes were dirty and soiled and stank of stale sweat and, though I hated to admit it, Angeline's were little better. I went straight to the room, took one look at that bed, and in a matter of minutes I was fast sound asleep.

When I awoke the sun was full up and the light of it was coming in through the drapes. It had been years since I'd slept so late, but I figured that I'd earned it. The sparse sleep I'd had in the past few days and the stress between catnaps had just taken it out of me. My every muscle had been sore and stiff from the exertion, but when the morning came I was feeling loose and refreshed. I gave my guns a good cleaning, which they sorely needed, oiled the actions and reloaded the empty chambers and magazine tube, then went to the bathroom to look myself over. The image I saw in the mirror was one that I didn't quite like. My hair was long and shaggy, hanging almost to my shoulders, and there was a stubble of beard on my face that was quickly growing into a full-blown beard. I hated stubble and had been scratching at it for a couple of days now, but there had been no chance to stop and shave. My face and body were dirty my beard had picked up some trail dust along the way.

No one had ever called me a particularly handsome man, although there had been a few women here and there that passed me a second glance. I hadn't ever noticed much. Jenny was the only woman for me. Looking at myself in that cracked old mirror, all the hard years of living I'd done seemed to be starting back at me. I stood six foot, four inches in my socks and was mighty thick through the shoulders and arms while still lean and narrow at the hips. My arms and legs both were powerfully muscled, the result of years of hard work and harder fighting, and my body bore the scars of my hard years as well. A dark slash showed across my left bicep, the result of a Legion machete catching me on the arm, and on the right side of stomach was the dark spot of an old bullet wound. Another bullet wound was on my left calf, gotten at Bitter Springs from a Great Khans sharpshooter, and a nick in my right ear remained from a knife fight with a Viper.

All in all, it wasn't much that could be said for what would soon be twenty-two years of living. Everything that would have been mine for the future had been back there at the family farm, along with the woman who had been my wife and would have been the mother of my children. Jenny and I had talked about having kids a time or two and I had really been looking forward to having a son that I could pass on my skills to. Someone that I could teach things like tracking, shooting, how to find water in the desert, which plants were best to eat and which were good for medicines, and such like. A daughter would have been a blessing as well, although I had less to teach a girl than to a son. Now all that was gone. My family was gone, my Jenny was gone, all that I had was gone.

I ran a bath into the old tub, loving the sound of the water running into it. The heat of the water was relaxing, refreshing, invigorating. The feel of the hot water was like something out of Heaven and I felt as if I could soak in that tub for a week. It was the first real bath I'd had for a month or more, getting by with just bathing in the river from time to time. I didn't let my guard down though, even here, and on a stool beside the tub sat my .357 in its holster. It felt wonderful to be clean and the hot water soothed my aching muscles, and when I got out of the tub and dried myself I decided that I had been carrying around that stubble long enough. There was some lather and a brush in the medicine cabinet and once I was lathered up I took out my Bowie, tested the edge, and began to shave. Once I was finished shaving, I cut into that shaggy hair. Within a half an hour or so, I was looking like a proper Ranger again.

A light rap on the door caught my ear and instantly my gun was in my hand, hammer cocked and my finger resting gently on the trigger. I stepped gingerly to the door and stood to one side, and when I asked who was there no one answered. I asked again, still no answer, so I turned the knob carefully and opened the door ever so slightly. No one was there, but my clothes were on the balcony in a neatly folded bundle. Feeling the fool, I eased down the hammer of my sixgun and scooped those clothes up. They felt clean and crisp when I put them on, almost as if they were brand new again. The white shirt had been turned almost yellow by sun and sand, the brown leather vest they gave me was faded, and the brown jeans I wore had faded to an almost tan color. My boots were down at heel, but they had a lot of country yet to cover.

Once I was clothed and clean, I remembered the rumble that my stomach had been making since last night. I could smell food cooking downstairs in the makeshift restaurant and right about then my belly was begging for some attention. I put on my hat and sunglasses, slung my gunbelt about my hips, and checked the loads in my pistol. It was fully loaded and the chambers made pretty little clicks when I spun the chamber and tested the action. It was a ritual I followed religiously every morning, and when I had dropped the gun back into its holster I felt ready to face the day. I thought about taking my rifle along as well, but thought better of it and left it locked in one of the dressers.

The morning sun was warm and bright when I stepped outside. The town of Novac was in full swing and I liked the look and sound of the place. The courtyard of the hotel was the heart of the town, with hotel forming one side of a defensive square with a tall fence and junk wall made of car hulks and old rubble forming the other three. A gate and a strong lock secured access to the yard and Dinky, the dinosaur tower, offered a handy sniper's nest as well as housing the local store. A man named Cliff Briscoe ran the store, a man known locally as a good man and a fine merchant. Jeannie May Crawford had her own reputation as a fair woman and a pleasant one, but it was Boone that I was curious to meet. Manny Vargas had said that Boone was the night-shift sniper, so he was probably off duty now. Maybe I would catch him at breakfast.

I didn't have to look hard to find the restaurant, if you could call it that. The smell of meat cooking and coffee boiling wafted through the air and caught my nose immediately. I had always had a good nose and had always been a good feeder, so when I smelled good food cooking I just naturally drifted towards it. It was on the corner of the hotel just down from the office and when I came in I saw Mrs. McBride clattering around in the kitchen and a big pot of coffee on the counter next to a stack of cups. I took one of the cups and filled it to the brim before taking a seat in the corner. The coffee was hot, dark, and strong enough to float a paperweight. Whatever else could be said about that McBride woman, she knew to make a man's coffee. She was the wife of a Brahmin rancher and so I suppose she was used to making good food and strong coffee for a strong man. The thought had scarcely left my mind before the bell over the door chimed and in walked old Dusty McBride, his dusty overalls and worn-out hat marking him as a rancher.

I motioned him over to my table after he'd gotten his coffee and kissed his wife and he came over with a smile. I think he knew me as a Brahmin boy myself and once the introductions had been made we sat and talked of the town, the desert around the place, range conditions, and the condition of his herd. He had about a dozen head or so, he said, and most of them were kept to supply the restaurant and the town with meat. he'd killed off most of the predators in the area, so his herd was doing well and was multiplying well.

He went on to tell me that his wife had made a fine meal for the kids the night before and put up some of them for the night. He said that the kids were coming in for lunch and that Daisy Whitman and one of the local men planned to take them up to the Old Mormon Fort to live with the Followers of the Apocalypse for the time being. That would be a good place for them. Those kids had been through the ringer and seen and done things that no child should, but I got the feeling that they would come out of it alright. They had held up well to the hard trip over the desert and had never once complained, not even when we laid out poor Reese's body, and they were all young and strong. They would be all right.

The sun was getting high in the sky outside and soon the people of the town started to come in from their work to get their midday meal. I sat in the corner and watched them come in over Dusty's shoulder, sipping my coffee and talking about the price of beef and the latest gossip. They were the same kind that was slowly, but surely, settling the Mojave and changing it for the better. Two centuries of desolation had all but reclaimed this place since the Old World had burned itself out and turned it into a savage land where only the strong survived. These people were the sort that brought with them the farms, ranches, towns, and businesses that would someday make the Mojave into a new California.

New Vegas was the largest unaffiliated city in the Mojave and the NCR was trying desperately to absorb it, even though the mysterious Mr. House was silently fighting them off with sweet promises and ever-delayed plans. House had carved out something of his own little empire out here in the desert over the last two hundred years, untouched by the nukes and the wars that had ravaged the Mojave and destroyed the Old World, but the other towns and villages out here like Novac, Nipton, Goodsprings, Primm, and all the others were only now being resettled by brave souls like Dusty McBride, Manny Vargas, Reese and his parents, Angeline . . .

The door opened again and I looked up to see a tall man in a red First Recon beret come walking in, then a second later he was followed by one of the prettiest little brunettes that I had ever seen. She was pert and pretty, although something about her demeanor told me that she would rather be anywhere else than here. She was pretty as could be, and that pregnancy glow was all over her even though that maternity dress she wore didn't fully conceal her growing belly. Boone was right beside her and I could see instantly that he was a soldier. His manner was entirely military; the straight posture, the regimented mode of dress, the beret that he wore, and the way that his face hardened whenever he wasn't looking at his wife. She took his arm while they ordered their meal and his face instantly lit up into a crooked smile. This was a hard man, no doubt about it, but that woman and her bairn were his pride and joy and his whole world. I knew the feeling.

They looked my way when Mrs. McBride pointed me out and once they had made their order they came toward my table as well. Dusty to look them over and stood up to welcome them as they approached. He exchanged hellos with Boone and his wife, shook hands, then turned and started to introduce me but I stood up and offered my hand before he could finish.

"Dan Weathers, pleased to meet you."

"Craig Boone, likewise. This is my wife, Carla, and down here," he put his hand on her belly, which she didn't seem to particularly like, "is little Carson or little Carla."

"Honey," she said as she half-slapped his hand away from her belly, "we said we wouldn't name her that."

I could see that she was anxious, but I couldn't help but like her. She was a strong woman and a clever one, I could see that, but she was here in this town far away from all that she had known before. She was a New Vegas type all right. It was written all over her. The hair, the way she carried herself, the sassy way that she all but slapped her husband's hand away. All of it told me that she was from the big city and wished she was still there. But she was in love with Boone and she wanted to be near him, I could tell by the look in her eye. Jenny had had that same look in her eye when she looked at me.

"I heard you were the sniper here in town. That true?"

"I'm one of them. I work the night shift and Manny covers the day shift. We've been here since we left First Recon a couple years ago."

"First Recon? I hear that's a tough outfit. A friend of mine was with you at Hoover Dam. Do you know a Ranger Clyde Gibson?"

"I've heard of him but I don't think I've ever met him. There were a lot of us at Hoover Dam and we didn't have much time to get acquainted afterwards. Recon didn't hang around long after the battle."

"I heard you were with them against the Khans. That was supposed to be a hell of a fight I it's own right from what I've heard."

Immediately I knew I had misspoken. A change came over his face that I recognized from old soldiers I'd known, the look of a man that was thinking of a time in his life that he wished he could erase. Nobody liked to talk about Bitter Springs and what happened there, least of all those that had been there, and I could see that he was one of those that wished it had never even happened. I'd known a Ranger that had helped track the Great Khans to that camp and tried to tell the idiots in charge that it was an actual village, not a raider camp as they had thought, but they hadn't listened. What happened after the battle was nothing less than unspeakable.

"From what else I've heard," I said in an attempt to change the subject, "you're supposed to be quite a shot with a rifle. I'm pretty good myself. You think maybe we could have a little competition sometime? Just a friendly competition, between friends?"

Another look came into his eye then that I also recognized. I had made it sound as polite as possible, but he knew that I had challenged him to a shooting contest. Those First Recon boys prided themselves on their marksmanship and some even went so far as to call them the best shots in the Mojave, some even in all of Nevada. Any man that challenged them to any kind of a shooting match would have to be crazy or confident in his own ability. I saw him studying me for a second, trying to decide whether I was the crazy kind or the confident kind. There was the faintest hint of a smile after a second or two and I think that he really wanted to go out and pop off a few rounds right then and there, if his wife hadn't been there. Right then she was giving him a look that would curl a man's hair.

"Maybe some other time," he replied, "if you're up for it."

"I'll be just over in Nelson. We've got some trouble with the Legion, but it should be sorted out before long. Once it's done, I'll be available any time you feel like having a match. Of course, as I said, it'll be just a friendly match between friends."

"Of course, between friends."

He offered his hand then and I took it, and this time I felt him testing my grip. He was a powerfully built man and his shirt and sleeves bulged with thick muscles that I was sure had been put to good use a time or two. As I said, I'm a pretty strong man myself so when he tested my grip I just tightened my fist and tested his right back. We stood there for a moment, both of us putting our considerable strength into our little private battle. Our muscles strained and tightened under shirt sleeves and our faces soon grew red from the effort. His wife saw what was going on but didn't say a thing, just standing there with her arms crossed and her head shaking from side to side. A minute passed by slowly and neither of us felt the other give at all. Finally we each let go, smiles on our strained faces, and shared a laugh.

"Friends, indeed," he said, and then he took his wife's hand and they went to a booth in the other corner. All that I had heard of him was true. He was a tough man and a strong one, but a good one as well despite his past. I decided that I liked Craig Boone and I had a suspicion that he had the same thought about me. Out here respect was a precious commodity that a man had to earn from others, and I had just earned his and he had earned mine.

Dusty and I talked on for a few more minutes, the waitress coming over to fill our cups and to take my order after a few more minutes. The room was filling up now and there was a feeling of peace about the place that I liked. I liked the sound of people talking, of dished clinking in the kitchen, of the gossip and stories being shared between farmers, scavengers, ranchers, and the like. For years I'd grown used to the rough talk and rougher ways of soldiers and Rangers back in the camps and bases along the river. Always we were talking about the enemy, about the places we had been, the battles we'd fought, the girls we'd known or left behind, and of friends that we'd known or lost. There was a camaraderie there, a feeling that a man belonged to something, but here it was something different.

All my life I'd imagined myself living in a place like this. Some little desert town where a man could sit on his porch and watch his Brahmin or Bighorners graze on the bunch grass, watch his wife hanging out the wash to dry or work in the garden or go about her chores, watch his sons grow tall and his daughters grow into fine young women. Just a few miles down the road was a town where all kinds of hell was set to break loose in just a few days, if not sooner, but here it was quiet, still, peaceful. The war and its horrors felt far away here. Indeed it seemed like only the snipers and their constant vigil kept anyone thinking of the war at all. No one was fooled, though, that much I could see. Looking at the men and women that came in to get their meals I could see that they were all fighting men. Some of them had visible scars from battles past while others had the same cool yet controlled demeanor that Boone had. No doubt some of them had been in the Army, but still more would have seen just as much action as any soldier by simply living and surviving out here in the Wastes.

The pretty waitress, a pert little blonde that couldn't have been older than fifteen but was trying to act much older, came with our food and both Dusty and I ceased talking and went to eating. I've always been a good hand at the feed table and I'd tasted some mighty fine cooking in my time, but one bite of that steak made me forget all that I've ever eaten before. Mrs. McBride was by far the best cook that I'd ever seen. The steak was tender and juicy, cooked to perfection, as were the potatoes and the Xander Root that came with it. I took my time eating, savoring every bite as only a man that has known real hunger could. The little food I'd had for the past few days hadn't really hit the spot.

People like to think that a truly hungry man always wolfs down his food all at once. That just isn't so. A man that has known real, body-changing hunger will almost always peck at his food with small, deliberate bites, savoring every bite and enjoying the flavor of every bit of the food that he can. A hungry man never knows when or what he'll get to eat next, so he enjoys what he gets when he can get it. I've been living on Army rations and whatever I could get from the land for the last few years and I'd often had to go hungry, so I'm a firm believer in the old soldier's saying, "Eat when there's food, sleep when there's time."

I finished the meal and wiped my mouth with the rag that did for a napkin, and before I could offer my appreciation to the cook Mrs. McBride herself came over to the table with an apple pie that had been cut into four quarter pieces. One of these she forked out of the pan and put on her husband's plate, then another she put onto my own. The pie was hot and steaming and I could smell the sweet scent of the sugar and cinnamon. It had been years since I'd even seen an apple pie, or apples for that matter, so I took my time with that big piece and before I knew it I was forking into a second.

"You know, Dusty," Mrs. McBride said, "I think I'd rather buy this clothes than have to feed him all the time. Give him enough time and he'd eat us out of house and home."

"I don't mean to be a glutton, ma'am. Having fine cookin' like this set out before me has that effect on me. You're just about the best cook that I've ever had the pleasure of coming across and I just can't say no to good food."

"You're welcome to it, Ranger. I like to see a hungry man eat. It makes a woman feel like she's made a man happy after a hard day's work."

"My day's work is just about to start, ma'am. I let myself sleep in and I've still got to be on my way to Nelson. There's trouble coming and I need to be there when it hits."

"What kind of trouble?"

I had never been able to lie to most people, let alone women, so I laid it out for her and her husband. I told them about the large force at Cottonwood Cove, the attack on Searchlight, and ,with what little information I had from Angeline and the kids, of the massacre at Nipton. To her credit, she didn't panic. I expected Dusty to take it the way he did, with neither surprise nor panic. He had lived out here long enough to know that terrible things were bound to happen from time to time. War or no war, men would always find a way to kill each other on a grand scale and if they didn't then the land would do it for them. His wife was a little shocked when I told her of the large army at Cottonwood, but surprisingly she didn't seem to be so surprised about the attack on Nipton. More than likely she had gotten most of the details of that from the kids. I had not heard of them yet, but I knew they were safe as long as she had them.

I finished my pie and wiped my mouth, feeling properly stuffed, and I reached into my pocket for some bottle caps for the meal. Mrs. McBride started to protest, but I insisted and I left her a few caps and a couple extra for the pie and a tip. I understood that she didn't want to charge me after what I'd done for those youngsters, but I've always paid my own way. In this world a man has to stand on his own two feet and not get to depending on others for what he needs. All my life I've never had much and I've never asked anything of anyone except for the chance to earn what I can from hard work and sweat.

The sun was high in the sky when I left the restaurant. It was hot and there were heat waves dancing in the distance, down the street a dust devil danced across the ruined asphalt of the old highway before vanishing into nothing, and on the west side of town I could hear the McBrides' Brahmin braying. Some coyote or other critter was probably getting too close for comfort. The western mountains looked on fire as the lowering sun cast its glow upon them, while to the east the sheer wall of the escarpment was draped in a growing shadow. It was a solid wall of rock that towered several hundred feet, most of it sheer, and in the distance I could see the one small gap where the road led through the rock wall and into Nelson. Beyond Nelson would be the Colorado, then the open desert and mountains, and somewhere to the southeast were more a couple hundred legionnaires preparing for war.

It was just past noontime now. If I was to make Nelson before sundown I'd have to get packed up and on the road within the next hour. Something about this place held me here, something that I liked, or missed, and as I rolled a smoke and struck the match I just couldn't help but love the peacefulness of this quiet little town on the ass-end of nowhere. I stood and smoked down my cigarette, loving the full aroma of the wild tobacco, and just listened to the wind howling and the Brahmin braying.

Finally I forced myself to move and so crushed out my cigarette, climbed the stairs to my room, and gathered my gear. It wasn't much to gather. Jeannie May had given me some supplies and I packed those into my satchel, along with what was left of the ammo I'd brought from Echo Station, my whetstone, the few Stimpaks I still had, and the copy of the Scriptures I'd taken from my family's ruined house. I checked my rifle and revolvers, finding them all loaded, then with that spare gun tucked behind my gunbelt I reached for the rifle and satchel on the bed. The door opened and filled the shadowed room with bright sunlight and my hand dropped instinctively toward my gun when I saw the form in the doorway. A second look over a shielding hand made me forget about the gun and just about everything else. The figure in the doorway was Angeline, and she was beautiful.

She had bathed with some kind of cactus flowers (I could smell them plain as day) and she was wearing a green-and-white checkered sundress that hugged her curves a little too well. Her red hair was clean and wavy as it fell down over one shoulder, and for the first time I saw that her face, now free of grime and sweat, was covered in freckles. She looked far different from the hardy woman I'd crossed the desert with, although the Hunting Rifle leaning against the jamb told me that she hadn't washed away all of her sense. She stepped in and slid the door closed behind her. When she looked at me something, I don't know what, made her smile. Maybe it was the stupefied look on my face or the way my eyes were glued to her curves and her freckles, or maybe it was just the way my hand started down for my gun at first. Whatever made her do it, I was glad for it. She had one of the loveliest smiles I ever did see.

"So you're leaving?", she said after composing herself a little.

"I have to. They'll be needing me back at Nelson when the attack comes."

"From the Legion? Do you think the NCR can hold out against an army like that?"

"I don't know, but we'll give 'em hell trying."

"I know you will. You most of all."

"How are the kids? I haven't seen them around and I'm starting to wonder."

"They're in the bungalows. Mr. and Mrs. McBride have the youngest ones and the girl who was shot. Ranger Andy said that he and some of the town men are going to take them to the Old Mormon Fort in New Vegas tomorrow or the next day. He said the Followers will take them back west somewhere, or back to their families."

"That's good. The Followers will take good care of them. They've earned a trip back to the civilized world after what they've been through. I wish them luck."

"Do you want to say goodbye to them before you go?"

"Nah. They've seen enough of me. Seeing me will just bring back bad memories."

"And what about me?"

That last part almost made me jump. It wasn't so much what she said, but more the way she said it. Up until now she hadn't been in my mind all that much. She was just That Pretty Girl from Nipton who could and would use a rifle. Of course, she hadn't looked like this until just now and my mind had been mostly preoccupied with watching out for danger, preparing for the next move, and mourning for Jenny and my folks. I hadn't shed a tear since seeing my family's bodies back there at the farm, and I don't think I will ever shed any more. That may sound strange to some, but out here it was perfectly normal. Death was a constant companion out in the Wastes and people died every day, both those that a man cared about and those that he didn't, and mourning was generally a luxury that one couldn't afford. The best thing to do with death was to just pack up and move on from it. My family was gone, my Jenny was gone, and none of them would want me to just sit around and mope about it. Then again, they probably wouldn't like what I had in mind for any Legion that crossed my path, either.

I had no business courting or even thinking about women so soon after my Jenny was gone, although as I said death was something one just coped with and moved on from, but I had to have some time to sort things out, and to get some payback. She stood there looking at me with those baby blue eyes of hers, asking me a hundred silent questions for which I could offer no answers. And there I was, a tall, lean man of the desert loaded down with steel and the few supplies that I could carry in my satchel.

I couldn't think of anything else to do, so I just reached over and picked up my repeater from the bed, adjusted the strap on my satchel, and started for the door. She didn't move, and I didn't want her to, and I walked right up to her and stared down into those baby blues. She was several inches shorter then me and she had to look up at me, but she didn't seem to mind.

"I was planning on it," I said, "but I didn't think I should."

"Why not?"

"Because saying goodbye to someone usually means that you don't plan to see that person again, and I would very much like to see you again, ma'am."

"Angeline, please. Call me Angeline."

"Okay, Angeline."

Her face flushed when I said her name, coloring the tanned skin between those cute little freckles. She was a beautiful woman, of that there was no doubt. I had seen her in the desert and I had seen her in action, but I had never thought that I would see her like this.

"I still don't know your name, Ranger."

"You heard me give it to Manny Vargas last night."

"Yes, but you didn't give it to _me. _I want to know what to call you."

"It's Daniel, Daniel Weathers. Most folks call me Dan."

"Okay then, Dan. I'll miss you."

"I'll miss you, too."

A lock of hair fell from her brow and over one eye, and I couldn't resist the urge to move it away with my finger. Her skin was soft and warm and I saw her blush even more once I'd moved the hair away. I got the feeling that she wanted to kiss me, and truth be known I wanted to kiss her too, but I know I shouldn't. I just kept looking down into those blue eyes and saw the need that was there, the want, and it was all I could do to hold back the urge to take her in my arms and plant one on her. I forced myself to step away and go to the door, pushing it open and into the hot sunlight again. She came out after me and followed me down to the office, where I dropped my key into the drop box, and then to the base of the dinosaur. There was a cool breeze that stirred the dust and her hair as she looked at me and for a moment I thought about turning back into the hotel.

"Well, I gotta be going. You take care of yourself. This is a good place here. You and those kids are gonna do alright. You tell Manny and Boone to keep a good eye on the road. If things go sour at Nelson, they'll be coming this way in a hurry. You keep that rifle handy."

"I will. You look out for yourself, Daniel Weathers."

"I will. I'll be seeing you around, Angeline."

"I hope so. Sooner rather than later."

I turned and started down the road then, not wanting to drag it out any more than I had to. It was hard to turn away from her, but I knew I had to. I started down that old cracked pavement at a fast walk, confident that no one would come out at me while I was under the watchful eye of Manny Vargas up in the tower. I knew he was there and I was pretty sure that old Ranger Andy would probably be around somewhere, although no one would know it until he wanted them to, so I walked across the old bridge in relative safety. I didn't think that the Legion, what was left of them, would be anywhere around after the fight back there at the raider camp and on the flats, but I was pretty sure that they might have a man out on some hill or cliff watching the road. That raiding party would still be somewhere around and they would be looking for targets where they could find them. Those raiders would probably have suffered from that fight at their camp, but I doubted that they would have come out on the short end.

The accuracy of the two snipers was put into stark reality when I passed the bridge and went around the rusted hulk of a car that had been there for the last two centuries and went on down the road, where I found the carcass of a raider wearing a metal helmet. He'd been there for a while, judging by the state of his body, but the bullet hole in his helmet told me that he hadn't suffered at the moment of death. The hole was right in the middle of the forehead and would've hit him right between the eyes. Looking back at the dinosaur, I saw that the shot had to have been taken from at least eight hundred yards away and at a slightly downward angle. That was a shot that few men would attempt and even fewer could pull off. Then again, not that many men were First Recon Sharpshooters.

I went down the road for about two miles before I passed through the canyon and went up off the plain, following the road down between the high, dark, stoic rock walls of the mountains. It was hot and there was no breeze in the canyon, but it was a dry heat and for once I was well rested and feeling fresh. I went on at a good pace and found myself eating up the miles one after the other as if they were nothing. I topped out on the ridge above Nelson and saw the newly fortified outpost which acted as a guard post on the road, manned by a half dozen troopers and one big man in Ranger combat armor that I instantly recognized as Ranger Art Milo. Milo was a big man, strong as a bull Bighorner and as tough as they come, and with his dark skin and that big shaggy beard of his he was a hard man to miss. A lot of us Rangers admired that Cowboy Repeater he was so proud of, the one that he called Carmine, that he had done up as a sort of trophy as well as a damn fine weapon. He had special sights on it, a custom action, and in the stock he'd embedded four or five gold Legion denarii that he'd taken off of dead officers. He had that rifle in his hands as I came down the road, careful to keep my hand away from my holster and carrying my own rifle by the action and in my left hand, and when the troopers raised their guns toward me he ordered them to stand down.

"Weathers," he said as he offered me his hand, "glad you made it. I heard you had yourself a nice little walk."

I took his hand felt his iron grip as I shook it, then replied, "True enough. Had a nice little picnic by the cave, too. We even had a few steaks and some lemonade. You'd have loved it."

"Gibson's gonna be glad to see ya. He's been at the comms tent every day since they got back waiting for news. We heard from Charlie that you'd called in and that Nipton and Searchlight were hit. That true?"

"Yeah. Searchlight's an irradiated cloud and I picked up some youngsters out of Nipton. They said the Legion razed it to the ground and killed everybody. They won't be going anywhere else, though."

The troopers gathered around us now didn't really get that last part, but Milo gave me one of his sly grins and I knew he understood. Any Ranger that had been out here for any length of time had seen action of one kind or another. We'd all taken scalps and suffered wounds and we all knew the score. I looked at those troopers and I could see that they just didn't get it. All of them were fresh-faced new recruits, probably on their first active assignment, and they all had that look of fear that one sees from the untested. Some of them were eager, some of them were scared of failing, but they all had one thing in common; they were afraid.

Back in California there were all kinds of stories going around about the Legion and what they did to prisoners and enemies. People in the cities were starting to think of the Legion as bogeymen that stole kids in the night or as walking, talking devils that just kept coming no matter what you threw at them. All of that was bullshit. Fearsome as they might be, a legionnaire was a man like any other. He might be big, he might be tough, he might be a fanatical maniac, but if you put a bullet into him he would go down like any man would. These men, boys more likely, would see that soon enough, if they lived.

Walking down the hill into Nelson felt a little like coming home. I was glad to be back in the town, back among friends and in friendly territory. With Ma and the family and the farm gone, the Rangers were all the family that I really had left. I had no right to expect anything of that red-haired woman back in Novac. I was just a tall, strong, raw-boned man of the desert with nothing more than a couple of guns and the clothes on my back to my name and a future filled with blood and dying, probably my own, and she deserved better than anything I could give her. I tried not to think about her. Trouble was coming in a horde and I had to be ready for it when it came. I had no business thinking about women at a time like this.

One look around town and I could see that they had been busy while I was gone. There were at least twice as many troops in town as there had been, with maybe a hundred men in all in town now, and the defenses had been strengthened. The fence on the east side was now reinforced with a sandbag wall and rough tower just over the gate, while the lower line of defense on the ridge below town was an almost solid line of breastworks with rifle pits dug behind sandbag walls with firing slots left between the bags. The three towers all had men in them and I could see that one of them even had a Light Machine Gun mounted on a swivel. Soldiers were milling around town as I walked through the streets to the sutler's store, carrying supplies, ammo, and other materiel from one place to another and to the men stationed along the walls. Snipers were in the towers at the edge of town and there were men on the lower walls at all hours. As I came down the hill I saw a squad of troopers and a Brahmin-pulled wagon full of supplies moving down the path that led to Tehatticup Mine. My guess was that they had some kind of post or lookout there to watch the river and the open desert approaches.

The sutler's store was full to capacity when I walked through the propped-open door. Every table and chair was filled with troopers, either drinking coffee or having a meal, but I saw the men I was looking for in the far corner at their usual table. Gibson was hard to miss with that old black hat he wore with the turquoise band, and Cooper had his scoped rifle leaning against the wall beside him. Grey and Bronson were there, too, digging into a pot of meat and beans, and they all saw me coming through the door at the same time.

"Well, I'll be damned," Gibson said as I came closer, "I was hopin' you'd make it back. If I have to put up with these clowns alone for much longer, I'd shoot the lot of 'em."

"Nobody would blame you if you did."

They were all happy to see me, although they limited themselves to simple nods and atta-boys when I sat down and poured myself a cup. The coffee was hot and stronger than any I'd had in days, and it tasted good. They asked me about the last few days and if the rumors about Searchlight and Nipton were true. I laid it out for them right then and there, all of it, without holding anything back. I told them about the ghouls and the radiation bomb in Searchlight, about the massacre of Wolfhorn Ranch, and about Angeline and the kids from Nipton and our flight across the Mojave with the Legion on our heels. Apparently word travels fast in the Wastes, for they had already heard about that last part. They could hardly believe it, but they knew that it had to be true. No communication had come from Searchlight since we'd left Station Echo and there was no traffic coming east out of Nipton. Radios couldn't penetrate the radiation cloud, so there was no way to get word of the massacres out aside from sending runners.

Gibson's first orders to me were to get some rest, but it just wasn't in me to lay about when there was work to be done. There were all kinds of preparations to make before the Legion hit us hard and I couldn't bring myself to rest while the others did the work. I stood my turn on night watch and camped in one of my usual spots near the cliff for the night, ever alert for danger, and at first light I was up and working. All day we labored hard and long, troopers and Rangers both, preparing for the attack that we all now knew would come. That raiding party had cut off the comms and roads to the west and no new forces had been sent that way, according to the Rangers at Station Echo, so their only logical target would have to be here.

Nelson had only been around for about a month or so, ever since the Battle of the Arizona Spillway had forced NCR troops off the east side of the Colorado and forced them to seek out a new defensible position on the river. Nelson was one of the few places where a force of any size could cross the river and one of even fewer places where a sustainable post could be built. The Legion had been on the offensive on the east side of the river and now were at our doorstep, but as always the NCR couldn't be bothered to secure a post other than the Dam. Nelson had been an afterthought for most of its brief history, and now we were paying the price for that.

We worked hard at piling up new sandbag walls, fortifying the existing ones with scrap iron and what native stone we could pile up, and stockpiling ammunition at crucial points of defense. At least thirty men were busy loading rifle magazines and filling bandoleers for the men with repeaters, placing them in cases to be distributed along the front line or handing them out to the troops. I filled the empty loops on my belt and the spare that I had been using as a bandoleer, took the few empty casings I'd collected along the way and reloaded them at the camp munitions bench, disassembled and cleaned all my guns, and put a fresh edge on my Bowie knife before heading out for the day's work.

Breakfast was a fast piece of work. Perry, the sutler and cook, was a good hand at the stove but even he had a hard time keeping up with a hundred hungry troopers. It was a fast meal of fried Mole Rat and flap jacks washed down with coffee, and then I was out on the lower ridge with the building crews. All my life I've had little else but sweat and hard work, and the years had blessed me with what many called exceptional strength. I was just a tall, lanky boy from the mountains, but my shoulders and arms were packed with powerful muscles earned in the fields and mines I'd worked since childhood. Those years had also blessed me with a talent for using a pick and shovel, and I put those to use now quarrying out stone for use on the wall out of the cliffs and filling sandbags with loose sand from along the riverbank.

In addition to our new fortifications, the new troopers started to lay out a few new lines of defense as well. While we worked at the walls, teams of engineers started laying mines and traps at regular intervals along he eastern approaches to the town and cutting brush and smoothing out soil for a better field of fire. Trip mines were buried and set in waves every twenty yards or so, as well as bear traps where they could be hidden by the brush. It would have been a good plan, if they had brought enough mines to do the job adequately. They should have had several hundred of the mines, but the new troops had only brought a few dozen of them. They built rifle pits along the walls and reinforced the few towers with scrap metal and sheets of iron and aluminum. It was hard work, but it was too little too late. Only the eastern side of town had been fortified and the new lookout post at Tehatticup Mine was mainly dependent on the natural defenses of the mine.

News came in over the radio from Station Echo, and it wasn't good. Legion troops were out in force, attacking prospectors and civilians all along the river, and they were already laying siege to the station. Reinforcements had been requested, but so far there just weren't any to send until fresh troops could come east from California. Every day they reported casualties, most of them civilians who had fled to the station for protection, and they were running low on ammo. The civilian radio stations were all abuzz about the sudden activity at Nelson. All day long we listened to the radio that we set up to pass the time, hearing about the latest attack on Camp McCarran by the Fiends or the latest raid on some caravan by raider gangs. It seemed like all the news that was going around was bad. All reports from Echo and from the few scouts that were out in the field reported no significant movement at the Cove, though, and that was always welcome news.

We worked from dawn until dusk, all of us doing our part. There were men at Tehatticup watching the river and laying what fortifications they could, snipers on the hills at along the walls of the town to cover us as we worked, and all along the river there were scouts and foragers on duty. I liked the work personally, to be active and working at something definite. And it also gave me a chance to think. Long hours of hunting, working, or marching often give a man the chance to contemplate things, and I swung that pick and fill those sandbags I did me some thinking. I thought about the revenge that I'd sworn to carry out and what a pleasure it would to get a chance at the red-clad devils that were sure to come our way soon, about what would happen if this place fell, but most of all I thought about that red-haired woman back there in Novac.

I had no right to think of her that way, but more and more often I found her in my thoughts. She was a beautiful woman, all right, and she was tough, but there was little I had to offer her and it was too soon after my Jenny's death to be thinking of other women. Jenny had been a fine woman, one of the best I'd ever known, but now she was gone and I had to let her go. Grieving does little good for a man. I'd known men who'd lost wives and loved ones and spent years brooding over it, letting grief consume them to the point that life no longer mattered to them, and I had no intention of becoming one of them. I had a thirst for vengeance in my heart for what the Legion had done to me and mine, but I didn't want it to take over my life. Revenge is a cold supper and too much of it makes a man lose himself.

That night I went to bed tired and sore. We'd done a lot of work and made a lot of progress, but it was still little enough for what we needed. More defenses would have to be built on the perimeter of the town, more towers put up, and we'd need more men if we were to defend this place. We had a hundred men here, but they were green troops for the most part and many of them had just barely finished training. The men that would be coming here would be hardened veterans fresh out of a successful campaign in the south, all full of piss and vinegar and ready to give Caesar another victory, and they outnumbered us two to one.

Dawn came too soon, as it always does, and before the sun was clear of the eastern mountains I was up and at the breakfast table. It was a little different today, with fresh Bighorner meat replacing the Mole Rat fryback. The meat was rich and delicious, and the coffee was good for my tired bones. Today promised more work and more urgency, but I welcomed it. Every hour I spent working was another hour I felt useful. The others were doing their part as well, with Gibson and Grey helping to scout the river and bring in fresh meat and Cooper and Bronson on the hills around town on lookout. Both Cooper and Bronson were good snipers and mostly they switched off the duty while we were hunting or on patrol, but now both of them were sporting Hunting Rifles and nestled up in the rocks where no one would ever find them. I sat beside them at our usual table now, my rifle leaning against the wall beside me.

We were all finishing up our meal and I was reaching for the pot when a man ran into the sutler's, panting from a fast ran and going for the center of the room. He was dressed in overalls that were dirty from the work he'd been doing and I recognized him as one of the civilian workers that had come in to help with the fortifications and to lend a hand in the defense, a good man and a solid one. He hadn't seemed to me to be the kind of man that would get excited about little things, so when I saw him running in like that it set my mind to wondering.

He ran to the center of the room and grabbed the shoulder of the captain that was eating there with some lieutenants and a corporal, all of them new arrivals that I didn't know. I saw the look on that man's face when he heard what the runner had to say. I couldn't hear him over the noise of the crowd, but I could tell that it wasn't good. He shouted something to the other men at the table and they immediately got to their feet and grabbed for their rifles. The captain jumped to his feet and whistled to get the attention of the crowd, who immediately quieted down and looked his way.

"Stand to, men," he shouted as loud as he could, "news just came in from Station Echo. The Legion is on the move and they're coming our way! Everyone to your posts, now!"

There was no wasted movement. My hand instantly dropped to my rifle and my hat. All of us left the table at the same time and we were all moving ahead of the frenzied mass of young soldiers grabbing for their weapons and gear. Gibson, Grey, and I all ran for the lower level of defense while Cooper and Bronson each went to a tower on the edge of the main fence, rifles leveled and ready for a shot at anything that might come up the river. Officers shouted orders to their men, the prepared crates of ammunition and loaded magazines were hauled out from the supply houses, and within minutes the entire garrison was in place at the two lines of defense. I took my place at one of the rifle pits on the ridge, resting my rifle in one of the firing slots and flipping up the peep sight for a better shot. The trail from Tehatticup Flat was a mere hundred yards away and the river about four hundred, both easily within range.

Moments after I got to the wall, scores of khaki-clad troopers flooded down the hill and leveled their rifles down the ridge. I heard the actions of dozens of Service Rifles and Varmint Rifles being cycled, the shouts of officers and sergeants, and beneath the sounds of action I could hear the whispered prayers of the raw recruits. Looking to my left and right, I could see some of them kissing icons and crosses or closing their eyes in prayer even as they looked over their rifle sights.

"I guess this is it," Gibson said off to my right, "they finally got tired of waiting around for us to come get 'em. I say it's about damn time."

"I guess so, Gibson. I was getting bored waiting myself."

"This sure beats beating the brush for raiding parties, don't it?"

"I suppose."

Any other time, it would have been a beautiful day. A cool wind came up off the river, stirring the bunch grass and the cactus flowers, the birds were singing on the cliffs on our south side, and I could hear the wind whispering through the Joshua trees. Sunlight reflected off the water, sparkling like so many diamonds on the ripples. I knelt behind the wall of sandbags, wishing we'd had more time to prepare defenses, watching that little bit of shoreline over my rifle sights just as all the young troopers around me were doing. The radio was blaring away a few yards to my left. It was the same old dribble we'd been listening to all the previous day; the Fiends were making trouble in West Vegas, Mr. House was making some new rule on the Strip, and apparently some courier got shot in Goodsprings.


End file.
